Death Sight
by SapphireShelle91
Summary: Five years have passed since book 6 and Suze is once again having ghost problems, but this is different from anything she has ever faced. Ghosts are disappearing from all areas by foil means and it up to Suze to stop it, but she has her own problems too.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Ok, I've known about this series for a couple of months now, but only managed to get my hands on the series a week ago, I have now read them all, out of order, I didn't manage to borrow them all so i had to read what the library had and wait for the rest. But anyway, I have now read all six books and thought, hey, these were pretty good, lets write a fanfic for the series about what happens afterwards. So last week while on holidays at the beach, i took out the laptop (as you do on holidays and trying to get over the horror of yearly year 11 Exams) and I started writing. So far I've written almost three chapters, the third chapter should be finished soon, it's longer than the first two chapters.  
Um, for those who know my Twilight fanfic, I am just taking a little break from it, i actually tried writing on it when i had Exams on and it stressed me out more and has given me a nasty writer's block that i'm fighting off.  
If i had to choose between this and my Twilight fic of which one is better written I would say this one, but I don't know.

Ok, I am sorry if Suze or Jesse or if any of the other characters are out of character, I promise i'm going to reread the series and get better grip on the characters, but yeah please bear with me if the characters are a little (or a lot) OOC.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters or themes in this fic they belong to Meg Cabot.

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**Death**** Sight**

**Chapter 1**

"_Suz__ie! Suzie! SUZIE!_

"_Mom?"_

"_Susie!"_ I cringed as my mother's scared voice was suddenly cut off a terrified scream.

"Mom!" I sat bolt upright in bed, my mother's terrified scream still echoing in my head.

I couldn't understand why I had dreamed something like that; that my mother… was being murdered… by a ghost?

Come on.

Ok, maybe it wasn't such a long shot, but still, it was highly unlikely, I mean seriously, why would a ghost want to kill my Mom for? To get back at me, hahaha, funny…

I scrambled out of bed, panic filling me, making me not think clearly, all I could get threw my head was the need to ring my mother and see if she was ok.

I took a few staggering steps, as another wave of nausea hit me, I had been getting these waves quite frequently in the past couple of months and I can't understand why, first nausea now freaky dreams what next mind reading?

Anyway, stumbled my way to where the phone was in our apartment, yes I said our apartment, meaning someone else did live here, that someone being the reason why I was trying to walk so quietly as to not to wake him.

Hey the guy wasn't able to sleep for a century and a half, what right did I have to wake him up from a peaceful sleep now? Ok, I had the right when I was in the mood, but that wasn't now, I was in the "hey- I'm- scared- about- my- Mom- being- murdered- by- a- ghost" mood.

As I picked up the phone it was only then did I note what time it actually was, 1:30am in the morning.

I groaned, I was never going to get back to sleep, but oh well, even though it meant that I would never get back to sleep, it didn't mean I was going to be in any danger of being yelled at for waking anyone up since Carmel was three hours behind us in New York, so it would be 10:30 pm there. Not that I actually cared about that at the moment I cared more about finding out whether my Mom was ok.

I dialled the familiar number and waited as the phone rang. I grew impatient after the second ring and considered yelling at the phone but decide against it, I didn't just have a sleeping boyfriend to consider but an entire apartment building too.

"Hello?"

"Mom?" I gasped out in relief before cursing myself for my rushed stupidity.

"Oh hi, Sweetie. What's up?" My Mom asked.

"Eh," I was stubbed now.

"I just wanted to ring and see how everyone is." I lied.

"Well, everyone is fine." Mom squealed and I knew something big had happen, something that excited her. "Dave got elected as class president, isn't that great." I felt myself smile. Yeah, that was pretty great; Doc would be a good class president. And Mom sound like a well Mom. And with Doc she had been able to have her second shot with a kid, and this one was semi more normal than me, even if this one was of intelligence far beyond his years.

"That's great!" I cheered with enthusiasm.

"It is, isn't it? He's so happy and he has so many ideas." Oh, I was sure he did and I was amused to hear which one of his ideas he was going to put forward first.

"Brad's won his third wrestling championships." Mom continued though I don't know why she bothered with Brad since neither Brad or I cared what the other was doing with our lives, well ok, not totally true in Brad's case; he liked to know what I was doing and what trouble I had gotten myself into so that he can spread the dirt about me around with others, though now a days no one really cared what I was up to. I mean, I had left school three years ago; I still had as much of an idea of what I wanted to do with my life as I did then. I wasn't married yet, though I have to admit that there were some strong hints that I wasn't going to remain as a girlfriend for much longer, the next step in the relationship was coming ever closer. The only huge changes in my life really in the pass three years, was the fact that I was back in New York.

Why was I back? Because I needed a hit of the city life before I went back to Carmel to live there for the rest of my years. And also Jesse had wanted to see New York and study here for a time. He prefers Carmel as I suspected.

"And Jake is getting married." This sentence dragged me out of my thoughts with force. I could hear Mom's excitement and that she was bouncing on the kitchen tiles. I wondered if she had been holding back to make the whole thing more dramatic. Then what she said finally sunk in.

"What!" I gagged. Sleepy? MARRYING! To who?

"Suze, it's not really that surprising." Mom chide me. Not surprising? Sleepy marrying wasn't surprising? Since when did he care about something other than sleep and money? I didn't ask Mom this, but I was tempted. I was also tempted to ask who too, but that would have let Mom on that I hadn't been listening.

"She's a very nice girl, Suze, you'd really like her." Uh huh, yeah, nice girl and me really liking her, in the same sentence, I mean, not many nice, normal girls liked me much, they found me weird and scary, so why would this nice, normal girl like me anymore? I didn't say this either.

"Great, I'm really glad for him, send him my congratulations." I said with as much sincerity and enthusiasm as I could muster this early in the morning.

"Speaking of marriage, Suze when are you and Jesse going to tie the knot." Mom asked me with mocking innocence. I started gagging again. Ok, sure, Jesse and I had thought about marrying, I mean, as I said earlier I was expecting him to pop the question quite soon, but to have my mother asking me so soon after thinking about it, I was speechless and embarrassed to no end.

"Um, I don't know yet, Mom. Um; I'll let you know when I do." I gushed out; the idea of hanging up sprang to mind of saving me from more embarrassment. My stomach gave an unhappy churn and a strong wave of nausea hit me.

"Oh well." I heard Mom sigh unhappily, obviously she was getting a real big high from all the marriage plans. She and the nice girl where probably running the show, cause I can't see Sleepy helping much at all.

"Yeah, sorry Mom." I mumbled, my voice muffled by my hand pressed to my mouth.

"Honey are you ok?" Mom asked worriedly.

"I'm fine, just tired."

"Honey why are did you call at 1:30 in the morning?" Mom suddenly asked me; obviously she had just done the maths of the time differences.

"Couldn't sleep." I admitted.

"Well, Sweetie, thanks for calling but I think you should get back to bed, you really don't sound well."

"It's just the flu." I mumbled.

"Well, take some medicine and get back to bed." Mom ordering made me feel like I was twelve rather than twenty-one.

"Yeah, ok, love you Mom, and say hi to everyone for me."

"I will do, so bed and we'll talk more when you come home in the holidays. Love you and send my regards to Jesse." And she hung up.

I didn't even bother hanging up, I was bolting for the bathroom, well toilet actually, my hand clamped to my mouth, trying to keep the vomit down.

"_Querida?_" oh damn, he was awake.

"_Querida_, are you alright?" Jesse tapped lightly on the bathroom door.

"I'm-I'm fine." I gasped, flushing the toilet, turning to the sink cold water and sticking my face under the freezing flow.

"Susannah?" Jesse walked into the bathroom and put his hands on my waist to steady me as I swayed by the sink.

"I'm fine, really, I am." I mumbled into his chest.

"_Querida_, your burning up and you just threw up, I don't call that fine." He muttered hugging me close to him.

"Ok, apart from that I'm fine; I don't need to go to the doctor."

"Susannah." He tried to argue back, but I shook my head.

"No, I don't need to see a doctor."

"Susannah, please." He begged me.

"Fine, I'll think about it." I could see he wanted to argue more, but I made a show of yawning and rubbing my eyes. He sighed heavily and helped me back to bed.

I flopped on to our bed and curl myself up into a ball. Jesse lay down behind me, his arm wrapped around my waist.

"I wished you'd just go." He mumbled unhappily, his fingers gently rubbing my belly. I shifted uncomfortable in his arms.

"Jesse, I'm not pregnant." I muttered.

"Yeah, this is exactly why I want you to see a doctor." He argued.

"Ok, I will." I sighed. I rolled over and curled into his chest.

"I'm just worried about you _querida_, that's all."

"I know, thanks, but really I am feeling better." This was a lie but I wanted Jesse to stop worrying about me, he had to worry about his internship at the hospital not about me and the chance of me being pregnant.

Which I'm not, I swear, I'm still having the cramps, I took those tests and they showed negative, so it must be just a bug that I haven't been able to throw for the last three and something months.

Not that I don't wanted to be pregnant, its just that I'm not ready to be a Mom and Jesse knew that, but I know that he was disappointed when I told him I wasn't.

"David is class president." I told him after a while, when it became clear that neither of us could fall back to sleep.

Jesse face broke into a pleased grin. He and David got along better than David did with his brothers, but then considering who and what his brothers are like, personally I can't blame him for attaching himself on to Jesse and considering him a role model.

"That's great, he was telling me he wanted to change the way his class was working, I'm surprised he wasn't elected earlier."

"I know, but I think it had more to do with confidence than lack of votes." I replied. I was happy, happy because I was actually here, here with Jesse, just talking without fear of interruption. _Damn, should have held my thought._

"Hello?"

Jesse and I looked towards the bottom of our bed, at the old woman who stood there, looking extremely confused as to why she was there.

I fought down a groan, I was so not in the mood for a ghost, especially one who looked like she couldn't remember her last name let alone why she hadn't moved on to where ever she was suppose to.

"Hello." Jesse greeted her with more grace than I could have manage at lunch time let alone 2:00 am. He was even gracious enough to actually get out of bed and pull on a shirt for the blushing old lady, which was more than I did, I continued to stay curled up under the covers, trying to keep warm by pulling my knee length shirt over my legs.

"How can we help you?"

"Oh well I'm not truly sure, actually." The lady admitted. I rolled my eyes.

"What is your name?" Jesse asked her gently.

"Margaret Sallony." Ok, so the lady could remember her last name, that didn't mean she knew why she was still here. Which was Jesse's next question.

"Why are you still here? How did you come to be here?" he asked her gently.

"I don't know." She sighed and smiled dreamily at Jesse, ew. "But can you help me find out?"

"We will do our best to help you." He looked back at me and I nodded. Well, it wasn't as if I could tell her to go away and not help her. That was such a, well Paul thing to do.

The lady looked from Jesse to me, her face critical, taking me in, judging me against what she thought a man like Jesse should have as a girlfriend.

"We just need to know a bit more about you before we can help you." Jesse said, drawing her attention away from me.

I lay back against my pillows, my head was swimming and I was feeling sick again. I thought maybe because my head was so thick with fog that was the reason why I saw a huge blankness forming behind the old lady.

"Eh, Jesse." I interrupted them. Jesse looked at me in concern, obviously worried by my white face. The old lady shot me a disgruntled look.

"What is it _querida_?"

"Am I seeing things? Or is there a moving black thing on the wall?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the blackness.

Jesse looked away from me, over the old lady's head at the wall behind her. His dark eyes widen, his mouth dropped when the blackness suddenly snarled.

"Eh? Jesse." I moved towards him, my arm reaching out to grab him and pull him away from the blackness that was continuing to growl.

A sharp pain suddenly struck me from within my midriff area. I let out a strangled gasp of pain, my hand outstretch towards Jesse fell to wrap itself around my waist.

As the pain within me intensified the blackness on the wall suddenly formed the head of a dog. The most ugly and fierce dog I had ever seen.

The old lady let out a petrified scream and ran to grab Jesse, but the dog head lunged at her, snapping her up screaming into its mouth.

The moment the dog creature mouth went around her, she disappeared with a _'poof'_. The creature turned to look at Jesse, who seemed frozen to the spot.

"Jesse!" I hissed at him. My midriff still ached but that didn't stop me from lunging at him to drag him away from be snapped up.

I knocked him to the ground between our bed and bedroom wall, the black dog snarling above our heads.

I, wincing, looked up at it. It snarled at me, but didn't come any closer. It sniffed at my face and let out a small growl, before it was gone. I'm serious, it was there, and then it wasn't.

"_Querida_? Are you alright?" Jesse asked me; seemingly he had found his voice again.

I dropped my head to his shoulder, burying my head against his neck.

"_Querida_?" his voice had a panic note to it so I thought I had better answer.

"I've been better." I grumbled. I looked up from his neck and back around at the wall. "What was that thing?" I whispered.

"I have no idea." He whispered back. He frowned suddenly, as if in deep concentration and placed a hand on my stomach as I sat up off him.

"Eh? What?" I asked, staring at his hand on my belly.

"Um, nothing, I just…" he trailed off and shook his head. "It's nothing." He dropped his hand from my stomach and looked around the room as I crawled back on to bed. Jesse probably would have helped me if I had asked him too, I had been tempted to do just that, but I decided against it mainly because well I was already half on the bed when the idea occurred to me.

"Are you sure you're alright_ querida_?" he looked at anxiously. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Oh please, I've had way worst then being winded from knocking you to ground." I said laughing weakly. Despite my macho attitude, I hurt all over. My nausea had decided that at this moment it wanted to be the centre of my problems.

"I gotta go." I said, shooting of the bed and bolting for the bathroom slamming the door behind me.

Who cared about the ugly dog face thing when you had your head stuck over the toilet heaving your guts out for no apparent reason. I mean, if there was an actual, logical reason as to why I was throwing up every freaking minute of the day, for example, if I was pregnant, I might have been a little more gracious about the whole thing. But I'm not pregnant! I was perfectly healthy up to three months ago, so what was it the throwing up?

I could hear Jesse pacing unhappily outside the bathrooms closed door, knowing that he dared even to stick his head around the door, I'd hit him. That was how great a mood I was in.

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**Author's Note:** So what do you think? Is it ok? and the characters, are they ok?  
Thanks for reading and please review


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: Ok, Hi, so here's Chapter 2. This fic is fun and easy to write when I'm stuck on my other fic's, which I am at the ment, which kinda stinks, since I know exactly what I want to happen and how it happens, I just can't seem to be able to get it right when I'm typing it. Very frustrating. Also my grammar in my other fic is also getting me down, since it's so terrible, hopefully my grammar will be better in this fic.  
But yeah, I hope people will enjoy this fic, if you do please review, if you don't still review so that i can write it to make it better.

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**Chapter 2**

And my mood didn't improve much over the next two weeks.

Something strange was happening in the spiritual side of the world.

A bad sort of strange.

The thing that made my mood so bad was not only that I still felt sick, but because neither Jesse nor I knew what was causing the strange and the ghosts we met with, all had an idea but none could tell their secrets before the huge ugly black dog appeared, coming out of nowhere and snapped them up and then would disappear again.

It also tried to do this to Jesse the first couple of times we met it, but it seems to have given up on him.

It had no interest in me, well actually, it seemed to have quite a bit of interest in me, but it didn't want to come anywhere near me for some absurd reason. Maybe the reason was that I hadn't been or just plain out not dead had something to with it.

Jesse had been a ghost for a century and a half and the people it seemed to be targeting were ghosts, so since I was neither but could still see it, I guess I was freaking it out a bit.

"What's on your mind, Simon?" Gina demanded as we walked threw our university campus. I'm only calling it "our" university with quotation marks because Gina had to basically drag me to the front office to sign in. Not that I don't want to be in Uni, I do, it just I don't know what I want to be and I had no choice in the courses I'm in because Gina chose them pretty much for me because she wanted someone, she knew in her classes with her.

I have absolutely zero interest in half the classes I am taking, but at least I have a friend to talk to and to complain to, or I did complain to when it didn't have anything to do with the G word. I mean the Ghost word not Gina.

"Nothing that has anything do with physiological trauma of owning an evil cat." I mumbled.

"What? Oh are you talking about that evil…" she started but I quickly held up my hand.

"Remember the last time you insulted that cat." I reminded her. Her eyes widen slightly and she looked quickly around her. I smirked at her over cautiousness. She was in no real danger of nail polish suddenly floating over and spilling all over her clothes by an unseen force, like what had happen to her five years ago, but back then Jesse had been a ghost and now he's human so the likelihood of him doing something like that again was unlikely, even so it is still unwise to insult Spike in front of him.

"So what's up?" Gina asked, returning to my dismay back to the subject I was trying to divert from.

"Nothing." I snapped. Gina looked at me critically.

"Are you sure? Cause your acting a bit… weird. Weirder than usual, I mean."

I laughed, trying to sound casual but if I sounded fake my ears, I dreaded how I sounded to Gina's.

"Simon."

"Really, I'm fine, I'm just not sleeping well, and that's all."

"Spending every hour throwing up?" she asked me lightly but in a tone that suggested she knew the reason why I was throwing up.

"I'm not pregnant." I almost yelled.

"I didn't say anything." Gina said still sounding calm, but her eyes had their annoying glint in them now. "But you sort of let on what some of your problem is." Gina said wisely. I hated the fact that my best friend was taking psychology. She is actually really good at it, which for me is a real bummer, considering now she was learning all these tricks to try and make me spill my beans about my secrets. I was now guessing what she had been trying to get it out of me, whether or not I was pregnant. Which I'm not, I wish people would just get this simple fact into their thick heads.

"I'm not." I growled at her.

"But you were hoping you were?" she asked me.

"No, I'm actually relieved I'm not."

"So why are you so sick? How do you know you're not pregnant? You have a lot of the systems."

"Cause I took those stupid tests and they where negative and I'm still having my cramps. Happy now?" I demanded, but of cause I knew she wasn't, she wouldn't be happy until she found out exactly what was wrong with me.

"I think you need to see a doctor and get a doctor's opinion, you do know those test can be wrong and in some cases women can still get the cramps while their carrying the kid." I felt my mouth drop.

"But I thought that was the whole point of getting pregnant, so that you wouldn't get the cramps for nine and whatever months." I argued back in mock horror, while trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. Gina shrugged.

"Some women are so unlucky." She said her tone still light but she was watched my facial features closely.

"Slee- Jake's getting married." I said suddenly, hoping this topic would interest her and take her mind away from me. She, to my slight amusement and chagrin, looked extremely unhappy about this news.

"Since when?" she asked coolly, completely ignoring several boys walking by us, all of whom tried to catch her attention with some witty comment, that I didn't get and didn't care to either.

"A couple of weeks back." I said. I wasn't entirely sure when Jake became engaged but I knew it was more than three weeks ago.

"To who? Kelly what's- her- name?" We walked up the main steps to the university's huge library. A library that, I kept telling myself that I need to bring David to.

"I'm not sure, Mom never actually got around to telling me her name." she probably had told me, but I hadn't been listening at the time.

"I'll find out when I go down for the summer." Summer break being only a week. Gina nodded, her face pulled into a frown. She wasn't a huge fan of Jesse and my plans to move back to Carmel in the near future.

She muttered something like, "I want details," before storming off upstairs to the psychology section of the library, leaving me to wander around, trying to think which of my end of term projects I wanted to start first.

All of a sudden I felt very tired and I flopped into the nearest comfy chair.

I couldn't wait for summer break, to be able to just go to Carmel and relax, not that Carmel was always relaxing for me, but at least I could get away from the school work part of my life.

I was extremely tempted to just curl up in the comfy chair and sleep, but an ear splintering scream made me desert the idea.

I looked around me wildly, but saw that no one else had reacted to the scream, suggesting two things, one and this was the one I hoped for, the scream was the cause of a big joke that had nothing do with a ugly black dog thing or two that the scream was the scream of a ghost, that no one could see or hear and this screaming ghost was being attacked by the ugly black dog. Sometimes my life seems to be filled with first, second and sometimes third and forth options and I could never go with the option I hoped for.

I got up from my chair and ran towards the direction of the scream, which I was helped in finding by a second and third scream, leading me for the library usually deserted downstairs old newspaper clips room.

Sure enough, as soon as I was down there, I saw the ugly mongrel cornering another poor old soul; this one had the looks of once being the old Liberian of the Uni's library.

The old Liberian looked terrified, well duh, I would be to with this black thing snarling and snapping at me.

"Oh please," she whispered to me in petrified voice, "please help me."

"Don't worry, that's why I'm here." I said with a reassuring smile. Well, I hope it was reassuring to her, because I wasn't feeling at all confident about this.

Oh sure, Jesse and I had met the thing over the pass two weeks, but that didn't mean we had any idea how to fight it or get rid of it, I mean none of the usual stuff we do didn't work on it, barely left a scratch on the ugly thing, not that I was going to tell this old lady that.

"Hey Ugly." I couldn't think of anything else, plus it is true, it was ugly. The dog creature looked at me and snarled, but its snarl was more withdrawn, its red eyes weren't a bright and glaring as they stared at me.

"Listen, Ugly, you need to get lost or I swear I'll…" I looked it up and down, I'll what? Pull its tail? Take away its favourite chew toy? What was I suppose to do?

"Listen lady, you need to go." I told the old lady, wondering why she hadn't just fled already.

"I can't." she wailed.

"Why?" I demanded exasperated. I didn't want to look away from the dog thing, but it seemed I had no choice. I looked away from the blaring red eyes to the old lady's watery blue ones.

"I can't move, it is on my shadow." I felt my eyebrows go up. Shadow? Ghosts don't have shadows, so how could the creature be on it?

"What?"

"My shadow, I can't move because it is on it." She wailed. Her voice was getting all the more distressed.

"Ok, ok, calm down, please. I'll try and get it off your shadow." However my promise was un-necessary, for as soon as I finished my sentence, a sharp, skin crawling whistle echo threw out the room and the Dog howled in response.

It lunged forward and ran pass me and up the stairs.

"Stay here or better yet, move on." I yelled at the shaking old lady as I sprinted after the creature.

I cringed every time the creature came close to someone but it never hit them, it always ran straight threw them as if the people around it weren't there. I, however, had to go threw the trouble of actually having to dodge people and have them glaring at me if I bumped into them.

I ran out of the library, down the front steps and out of the uni campus. It didn't take me long to figure out where the mongrel was running for, Central Park.

My legs where beginning to ache, but I ignored them and continued to power on even with all the strange looks I knew where being sent my way by tourists, but I couldn't care.

I often don't like going into Central Park, to many ghosts there, old ones, new ones, doesn't matter there always there, can never figure out how to get rid of them, I just learnt to get use to them always being around. That was why when I entered the park and continued to run threw it and saw no one, no Ghosts, I mean, I started to freak out. I mean there where ghosts here from when before my Dad died here, and now there where none. None greeted me, none made rude hand gestures at me, none went on by on their merry way not knowing they were dead. NONE!

I came to one of the darkest parts of the park and saw that the mongrel stopped, in front of one of those StarGate rings, except this one was red and fire like, rather than blue and watery.

The mongrel snarled at me as it back into the StarGate thing.

I heard howl behind me and swang around. There was another one! _Oh crap!_

The one who had just arrived snapped at me before snarling at the one by the Gate who growl back in response. They both glared at me with burning eyes. I was in trouble, I knew that now. I was in bigger trouble than I had ever been before, I realised, because these things could do more than kill me, I could just tell, that if they did kill me and took my soul, well, I don't think I'm going to be reincarnated or going to heaven or whatever.

The mongrel which had arrived only moments before suddenly lunged towards me. I let out a scream and flung myself to the ground in front of a tree with great big roots, that I curled myself up by. I wasn't stupid enough to try and fight these things.

The ugly mongrel landed just in front of me and growled at me, raising one of its huge black paws with sharp black claws above my head.

"No!" I screamed and threw a hand out in front of me, in the general direction of the beast. I closed my eyes in terror; I didn't want to see my death, not at the paws of this ugly thing.

My midriff grew suddenly warm, the warmth rising up threw my body into my outstretched hand and then I heard a strangled yelp of pain. My eyes flew open and I stared, my mouth dropping.

The beast that had been about to kill me, was howling its head off sporting a huge wound across its chest and right shoulder, the fur and flesh around the wound where smoking and thick black blood dripped from the wound.

I pressed one hand to my mouth, to try keep the nausea down in my stomach.

The mongrel by the Gate let out a sharp bark and jumped into the Gate and disappeared. The wounded one looked from the Gate to me, deep loathing in its eyes as it glared at me. It let out a snarl and moved its great, ugly head forward so that I could actually smell it smoking fur and it gross smelling blood.

It glared into my face, before lowing its head to my stomach and sniffed. I shrank further into the tree root that I was pressed against. It nudged my stomach with its snout and I felt sharp pain erupt from the spot where its snout had touched. I fought back a scream, but suddenly the pain was gone and the creature couldn't come near me. It tried but it was like it continued to hit an invisible wall.

It snarled in frustration and head butted the invisible wall again, but was stopped from doing so again by another whistle that made me shake to my bones.

With one last snap of its jaws, it turned on its heel and disappeared into the Gate. And as soon as all of the beasts were in, the Gate disappeared too and it was like it had never been there, except that all the plants and trees in this section were dead.

I got up, cringing a little and walked to where the Gate had been. There really was no sign it had been there, except… I stared at the ground, where there was a straight line of ash were it had been. I rubbed my face, none of this made any sense.

But when did anything to do with ghosts ever make sense?

I left the park, brushing myself down repeatedly, I really didn't want to be question by Jesse as to why I was so dirty and to then be ridiculed about being reckless before I could get the full story out, so my plan was to tell him the full story and then let him have free leash to scold me as much as he wanted.

When I got back to the library, I found Gina flirting with several guys most of whom I didn't know, but with dating Jesse I didn't pay all that much attention to any other members of the opposite sex.

When she saw me, she waved to me to join in; I waved back but shook my head. I knew I was going to be interrogated by her later on about where the heck had I been for the last hour or so anyway but I'd rather be interrogated by Jesse first.

Before I left the library again, I checked the old newspaper clippings room to see if the old Liberian was still there. She wasn't but I wasn't sure if that was because she had actually done what I had told her to do, which was to moved on or if she had just gone off somewhere else in the library or if another one of the mongrels had got her.

Great, there now seems to be more than one of those ugly things around. It made sense I guess, for there to be more than one around, with the number of ghosts that where just disappearing around New York, but the prospect of more was frightening.

I don't know what sort of threat they are to living human beings, but I knew, they couldn't be any good to the dead ones. I made another quick stop in another part of the library which was pretty much deserted too.

I sat out front of the library for another half hour waiting for Jesse to pick me up. He promised he would continue to pick me up as long as I was feeling sick. Most days I hated this, I felt like a little kid with an over protective mother (and I do know how it feels to have one of those and one was enough thank you very much), but today I was so happy that I had a boyfriend who took time out of his busy go-go schedule to take care of me. It made me feel happy and special today rather than like I was some a ten year old.

"_Querida_?" I looked up from the thick book in my lap to stare up at Jesse's worried face; I hadn't even heard him coming up the stairs to where I sat on the third from the top, leaning against the stone rallying.

"I'm fine." I said, before he could ask me. I held up the book from my lap and pointed to the top of the page I had just been reading. I saw his brow crease in confusion at first before his face turned white.

"You don't think _querida_?" he whispered threw white lips.

"That these aren't the dogs that we've been seeing? Well, if their not them, then I have really got no clue." I said calmly, which was something considering how I felt inside, which was far from calm.

"But, Susannah." He started, but words seemed to be failing him.

"Theses are… their…. I don't think." He tried again.

"They match the description perfectly." I said still calm.

"But Susannah, Hell Hounds?" he demanded, finding his voice to speak out the word at last.

"Yup." I said, "and I have something interesting to tell you." I slipped my arm threw his and we walked down the library stairs together.

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**Author's Note:**Yup, I'm back to the superstitionand myths, if any of you have read my other fic's you see I do a lot of that and this time it's Hell Hounds, it was only a matter of time before I dragged them into a fic, just wasn't sure which one and now their in. YAY!  
And yeah a reference to StarGate which I'm Disclaiming right here I don't own it neither do I own Hell Hounds. Did you know one of the most famous known Hell Hound is call Cerberus... if any of you know CardCaptor Sakura you'll get it.  
So yeah thanks for reading. Review if you want Chapter 3, cause it's already done and four is almost completed.  
Thanks and Bye.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Hey I'm Updating, well duh!  
Anyway, I thought I'd update, though I'm a little depressed (and I'm also somewhat amused) by the fact that i have like 33 hits or something for this fic but I only have **_3 reviews_** for it (which thank you so much Bradhadair fire starter and purplepup272 and to the people who put this fic on alert, it means a lot to me)  
I'm not really going for Reviews with this fic. I swear I'm not. This isn't a fic that its survival depends on how many reviews I'm getting for it (well at the moment its not), but Reviews are nice and if you have any ideas you'd like me to put in this fic then I'm quite happy to as long as the ideas are reasonable and I can somehow intertwine it somehow into this fic.  
Anyway, this chapter I have more character coming in, one of them is of my own creation, so she's written as I wanted her to be written, so neh!  
So Yeah, I'll shut up and allow you, whoever you are to read and hopefully you'll like (or hate ) what you read in this chapter and the previous chapters and will be kind enough to review.  
Oh yeah, just another reminder this fic is taking place five years after Twilight, Heaven Sent, the sixth book, whatever. Just thought to remind you.  
Thanks.

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Chapter 3

"Hell Hounds? Are you absolutely sure?" It's amazing how a priest of God could sound so excited about creatures that could possible come from Hell itself.

"Pretty sure, Father D." I replied. It had been a week since I had the close encounter with the Hell Hounds; something Jesse is still not pleased with me about.

My school year was over for the summer, and I was contemplating just taking a break from it since I wasn't really going anywhere with it.

Maybe I should just get a job and work for a year and then maybe go back to school with a better idea of what I wanted to do with my life.

Anyway it was Friday afternoon and Jesse and I were packing for Carmel. Jesse hadn't been able to find a hospital in the New York area that would take him for the summer, mainly because he didn't have powerful members of government for family and stuff like that. It had nothing to with he didn't have the brains.

Anyway, at this very moment in time I was talking to Father Dominic, to give him an update of our small problem, which had apparently grown larger since the Father himself and he- who- must- not- be- named- in- Jesse's- presences had both seen at least one Hell Hound, neither were apparently sure whether they had seen the same one or different ones, much like Jesse and I had been before I had seen the two of them together beside the fire Gate.

"I wonder why they are here." Father D was muttering to himself over the phone so I continued to paint my nails since he wasn't saying anything that was new to me. Jesse and I had been wondering the same thing for the past week.

"Maybe to collect souls." I threw the idea to him.

"Yes, but why? Why not wait?"

"I don't know, maybe they got sick of waiting and decided to start collecting." I said shrugging a little, even though I knew he couldn't see me. Jesse however could and rolled his eyes at me in exasperation.

"But why so many ghosts at a time, it doesn't make sense." Father Dominic muttered.

"Why?" I asked interested now.

"Well, now this is coming from Dr Slaski studies rather than what I know." He sounded unhappy about this, but I didn't care.

"So what did he find out?" I asked impatiently

"Well, not that much actually, only that Hell Hounds, as you want to call them, don't usually leave the spiritual plane, they only do so when someone summons them and when that someone does summon them, they usually set Hell Hounds on living Humans as an act of revenge."

"I'm guessing that someone would have to be a mediator?" I asked threw gritted teeth, it was very hard for me not to scream out he- who- must- not- be- named and cursing his very existence. It would be so like him to summon something like this just for the hell of it.

"It is not Paul, Susannah." Father D told me, a little dryly.

"How do you know?" I demanded. Jesse came to sit beside me on the couch, his arms wrapping themselves around my waist, pulling me into his lap.

"He is the one who told me about them, well, Hell Hounds, first."

"What are they called in Slaski research?" I asked.

"Um, Beasts of the Underworld."

"Hell Hounds. Beasts of the Underworld, same things." I grumbled.

"Well, yes I guess." Father D sighed. "When did you say you'd be back here?"

"Tomorrow evening." I said, feeling all of a sudden extremely happy and bouncy. I let out a happy little giggle.

"Susannah?" Father D asked me puzzled. Jesse took the phone off me. I scowled at him, but he ignored me.

"Sorry Father, Susannah's been a little out of it for the pass couple of months." Jesse informed him. I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Don't worry Father, I'm sure everything will work out." And with a quick goodbye from all sides, we hung up. As I watched Jesse get up and hang up the phone, I glared at him sceptically.

"What?" he asked me clearly puzzled.

"I'm sure everything will work out?" I quoted him, raising an eyebrow at him. "How Jesse? We don't even know how to destroy them let alone how what they want?"

"We'll figure it out." He said shrugging. My eyebrow went up higher in disbelief.

I got up, shaking my head. I went to walk pass him back to our room to continue packing, but his arms went around my waist.

"You saved my life! You found a way to give me a shot at a life with you, you'll find a way to figure out this too and I will help you and protect you as always." He mumbled, making my knees weak. He spun me around on the spot, so that I crashed gently into his chest and bent his head to mine and kissed me sweetly.

My arms went up and wrapped themselves around his neck and I felt as if I was flying. Having an excellent kisser for a boyfriend was a defiant high point in life.

* * *

"Susie!"

"What am I? Five?" I grumbled to Jesse as we walked up to my, well our old house, which hadn't changed all that much over the pass couple of years.

Jesse and Andy, who had picked us up from the airport since Mom had been working late on a big story, laughed quietly on either side of me.

Mom and a barely recognisable David were waiting at the front door, both grinning with equal enthusiasm.

"Hi." I smiled weakly as Mom pulled me into a bone crushing hug. I managed to hug her back weakly, before I was trapped into David's arms. Geez, when did this kid get so tall? I swear he wasn't this tall last time I had visited, we had been the same height, when did he get a _head_ taller than me?

"Wow, Dave, you've gotten big." I gasped when he released me. He smiled proudly at this. David was only tall rather than tall and burly like his brothers. Apart from the tall factor that had changed about him, nothing else had changed much. He still had his red hair and freckles and still had a boyish look about him, so yeah, he was still just little David. Little David, being taller than me, hmm, I'm not going to get use to this any time soon.

Mom was talking a hundred mile a minute, even though no one apart from Andy was actually listening. Jesse might have been half listening, he gets this look that looks like he's paying his complete attention to what your saying, until you quiz him later and find out he was off in his own little world close to the beginning of the conversation. This never happen when he was a ghost, but I guess that was because he interacted with so few people, living people, that any conversation was worth listening to. But now, well he's a living human again who gets bored as easily as the rest of us when it comes to boring things.

"Now, you two go upstairs and rest, while we prepare things down here." Mom said, herding Jesse and me towards the stairs. She must have finished whatever the hell she was talking about.

I walked into my old room, which also hadn't changed much apart from being a lot barer since I hadn't been living in it for ages, but apart from that it was the same. I mean with Jesse in it, it was like I had never left, though him being alive rather than a ghost is a big difference and a huge bonus for me.

I flopped on to my bed, feeling tired and happy, but strangely complete all at the same time. Jesse continued to stand by the door, watching me in slight amusement.

"What?" I asked him lazily. He shook his head, his mouth pulled into a tight line as if to hold back laughter.

"I'm just understanding how much I'm glad I'm alive with you." he chuckled.

"Eh?"

"Never mind." He was still chuckling in his secretive way but I let him be.

I lay on my bed staring into space, only vaguely aware when Jesse lay down beside me, his arms wrapping themselves around my waist, hugging me close to him.

"How are you feeling, _querida_?" Jesse whispered after awhile of silence. I frown at the question, trying to find out how exactly I was feeling. I was actually feeling a lot better now, I wasn't throwing up as much and I was just generally feeling better.

"Not brilliant, but a lot better thanks." I mumbled, wiggling a bit in his arms so that I could cuddle into his side.

"I wished you had seen a Doctor before we left." He grumbled into my hair. I shrugged.

"I said I would see a Doctor, I just didn't say when I would see one."

Jesse scowled at me and shook his head and said nothing. I grinned at him innocently and he sighed in defeat, leaning over a bit to kiss me…

"Hey, you two! You need to come downstairs!" Doc yelled, pounding on the door twice before bouncing down the hall. Jesse pulled away from me and got up and off my bed, sighing.

I sighed too; Doc always seemed to have the talent of interrupting us in inappropriate moments.

With another sigh, I pushed myself up off my bed and staggered into Jesse, who quickly steadied me.

"Are you…?" He started to ask, his face filled with concern, but I waved him silent.

"I'm fine." I said with a bounce in my voice that my body did not feel, "haven't you ever heard of someone standing up too quickly and getting dizzy from that? What kinda Doctor are you going to be?" I demanded. He didn't looked impressed with my explanation or my teasing of him of being a Doctor, but he obviously didn't want to fight with me and end up sleeping on the couch, that he'd have to fight for with Max, the dog.

We walked down stairs hand in hand, ignoring the suggestive nudge Andy gave my mother and the humming that he made, 'dum dum da dum'

I rolled my eyes at Jesse, but he was in his own little world so made no response. Sometimes I really do wonder what goes on in that head of his, I mean, I love the guy, I'd die for the guy, I have died for the guy and would do so again if the situation arrived, but he sure as hell could annoy the hell out of me and going all broody on me was annoying me and making me all frustrated and longing for chocolate ice cream with sticks of carrot in it… HUH? Ewww!

Then again, maybe Jesse's pestering to go see a Doctor isn't too far off the mark, I mean, come on, Carrots and chocolate ice cream together, in the same bowl? Who would want to eat that if there wasn't something wrong with them?

Andy's voice dragged me out of my inward horror at the fact that my stomach actually seemed to like the idea of that desert.

"Ok, Jesse, Suze this is Carmen. Carmen this is my step daughter Susannah and her boyfriend Jesse de Silva." Andy said happily.

I blinked. I had completely failed to notice the small, tan blonde standing next Andy by the door, smiling in a shy, awkward sort of manner at us.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Jesse said breaking out of his own little trance and stepped forward, towards her, hand out, dragging me along with him by the other.

"Nice to meet you too." She replied, shaking his hand and smiling sweetly up at him. She turned and smiled at me, her greeny blue eyes twinkled at me, in a merry sort of way, yet behind the merriment there was a coldness and as I shook her hand I felt cold too.

"Hi, Carmen." She said brightly.

"Suze?" _Duh_. "Nice to meet you." she nodded cheerfully in agreement, losing all of her shyness and turned beaming to Andy.

"Jake, will be here really, really soon, he just needs to fix something's up at work" she said in the same bright, cheerful voice that I was sure that after listening to it for more than an hour would end up giving me a headache.

Actually, it looked like I already had one. I rubbed my temple, with my eyes half closed as Carmen rambled on and on about something or other which I couldn't care less about because my head felt like it was going to splint in two and I felt like throwing up. I thought I was over that.

"Are you alright, Suze?" Carmen suddenly asked me, her face filled with concern. Everyone else looked at me startled. I tried to smile reassuringly.

"Headache."

"Try drinking some Chamomile Tea." Carmen recommended before anyone else could say anything. Jesse looked at her in surprise.

"It's what my mother always gave one of us when we had headaches." She said once again bright.

"Chamomile?" I asked blankly.

"It works." Jesse agreed unexpectedly, Carmen beamed at him and he smiled back.

"I'll go and make you a cup and you go outside for some fresh air. Being on a plane for so long can make anyone fill a bit off." She gently pulled me away from Jesse, which I wanted to protest loudly about but decided it would be better to just keep my mouth shut and let her walk me out side to the front porch where she told me to sit while she made some Chamomile Tea.

Great I had been back in my house for an hour and I had already been kicked out.

I heard footsteps behind me not long after I got kicked out. I looked around, hoping it was Jesse.

However, much to my disappointment, it wasn't. It was Carmen, smiling just as brightly with two cups of steaming, Chamomile (I wrinkled my nose) tea.

"Here." she held the cup out to me and not being able to think up an argument as to why I should have to drink the stupid tea I took the cup she offered me.

To my even greater annoyance, she sat down beside me, still smiling.

"It's great here, isn't it?" she said conversationally. I nodded blankly, and took a sip of the chamomile tea. I cringed and felt my face pull at itself in disgust.

"Yeah, it can be a bit different if your not use to it." Carmen said looking amused at my cringing.

"But it's really quite soothing once you are." She added her face dreamy. I looked into my cup wondering if there was something addictive in it.

We sat in silence, drinking (or in my case just staring) our tea. I knew from her fidgeting that this girl hated silence, which made me wonder even more why the hell she had dated and now _marrying_ Sleepy.

"How did you meet Sle- Jake?" I asked. I mean this girl was going to be part of the family I might as well get to know her and be nice to her; I wasn't even sure why I didn't like her and it wasn't even that I didn't like her, I just… didn't like her. Hmmm, full circle.

"Oh, we met right after I moved here six months ago."

"Wow, um, quick engagement then?" I asked somewhat dazed at the speed that I had never seen Sleepy to take in anything apart from money.

"Yeah, I know, but when you know it's the one, why wait?" she laughed. I smiled back, a strained smile. _Yeah, why wait?_

"So what about you and Jesse?"

"Um, I met him when I was sixteen."

"But your not married or anything, right?" she asked me. I eyed her questioningly, but shook my head.

"No, we're not. We're still dating."

"But you two seem so tight, I thought that." She shrugged and smiled at me again. I seriously didn't get this girl and what her interested in Sleepy was.

"We are tight." I agreed softly. "Just not ready yet." I shrugged and smiled weakly.

"I think I understand, but you might want to get married soon though." She laughed suddenly getting up. I frown up at her.

"Why?"

"Oh, no reason, really, I just think your Mom wants to keep on planing weddings. She's really been enjoying planing thing one." She laughed again.

"Right."

"How are you two ladies doing out here?" Andy asked walking out to us.

"Great, just swapping stories about our men." Carmen said brightly. Andy mockingly cringed in horror and made the motion as if to run away and Jesse, who had come out behind Andy snorted with laughter, his eyes dancing with amusement as he took in my disapproving face.

"How are you feeling now, _querida_?" Jesse asked me, as he held out hand for me to grab hold of so that he could pull me to my feet. Now, normally, I hated it when he did this, it made me feel stupid but that's normally and these past few months had been far from normal for me. I smiled up at him and took hold his hand so that he could help me to my feet.

"That's so cute." Carmen squealed, just as I gained my balance. Her squeal almost made me lose my balance, the only reason I didn't was because Jesse caught me.

"What?" Jesse and I asked in sync.

"That too, you talking in sync was cute but the fact that he called you '_querida_'" she laughed, clapping her tiny hands in delight. Did I mention she was tiny and I mean tiny. She was even tinier then Cee Cee, which by my book was tiny (Cee Cee, seems to be stuck at the size she was at sixteen while the rest of us in the year grew at least another half inch)

"He's always called me that." I said, without thinking. And it's true he has, from the first time we met. I remembered how much it had annoyed me when he called me _querida_ now I felt like I would die if he didn't.

"I've always called her _querida_" Jesse said in almost exact sync with me. Andy, my Mother and Doc, who had just come out to find out why we were taking so long to come back inside, laughed. Carmen just looked amused.

"What does it mean, anyway?" my mother asked once she was over her laughter.

"What does what mean?" I asked puzzled.

"_Querida_?" of cause my mother didn't say it right, but she was close.

"Um." Once again Jesse and I were in sync with each other. However, Carmen saved us from answering by squealing out Sleepy, correction Jake's name as he drove up the drive way in his own Land drover.

"Hey Babe." He greeted her, as she bounced down the drive to him.

_Babe?_ I tried to control my giggles. I have never seen Sleepy so alert as he was now.

"Hey Suze, Jesse." He greeted me and Jesse as he and Carmen came to the front door, arms around each other's waists.

Jesse nodded and the two men shook hands. The fact that Jesse and Jake actually get along has always amused me, I mean they don't have that much in common, actually I don't think they have anything in common, but hey at least Jake and Jesse can have a decent conversation which is more than can be said for anything that comes out of Brad's mouth to anyone.

After twenty minutes of talking on the front porch we headed inside for Andy's feast. Andy wasn't all that impressed that Brad was missing from his special dinner, however the rest of us didn't really mind.

I've never been one for family dinners, but this one was probably one of the best I had attended and on the plus side I didn't feel sick either, which is of cause a bonus.

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**Author's Note:** So what do you all think, can I get some reviews or am I updating for no reason, cause I don't actually have to, I'm writting this more for self enjoyment then anything else... Ah, I'm sorry, I'm being bitchy, I've had a bad two days.  
My Grandmother had a Stroke, a small one, but still a Stroke, so I'm and the rest of my family are extremely worried about her and I'm also crabby because my Holidays aren't quite going as planned. My Grandmother in Hospital was defiantly not something I had planned for, though on the bright side she's on the mending side of things.  
So yeah, please ignore my grumbles, I'm venting at my computer screen and interdirectly you too, so sorry.  
Anyway, I do hope you all enjoyed this and will review and if not oh well, thanks for reading anyway.  
See you next chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** Yeah for those who care I've updated. I've already written up chapter 5 so I can update again if you lot want me to.  
I can't believe how much has changed over the past couple of weeks. I know not a big thing, but its still a bit of a surprise, when logining in and finding things have really, really changed. I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I like the changes, but hey, their probably for the best.

Ok this is a rather long chapter and there's a lot of talking at the beginning of it and then some action close to the end of it, I'm not saying anymore, you'll just have to read and find out what's going to happen. Oh yeah and more old character's come back into this chapter.

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Chapter 4**

Monday morning, 8:30am and all the kids in Carmel were still happily in dreamland, while me, to my slight horror… ok more than slight, was heading with Jesse to Junipero Serra Mission Academy to go see Father Dominic.

I was actually looking forward to seeing the old priest; I mean I do owe him a bit for all that he has done for Jesse so that he could live a normal life without suspicion.

How exactly he managed to do this is still beyond my knowledge, but obviously Men of God can have some powerful friends around.

Jesse stopped the car we had rented for our stay here in the student car-park of my old school, grinning in a cheeky sort of way.

"What?" I asked curious to know what had trigged this cheeky, teasing smile.

"You were so funny when you first came here! So angry yet full of beans, eager to take the world on all by yourself yet pretending that you didn't care about it half the time." He chuckled and shook his head. "You were so complicated! I could never understand what was going on inside of your head at one time to the next." He looked at me and reached out and touched my cheek gently. I frowned at him.

"But you always seemed to know what I was thinking, sometimes I thought you were telepathic or something. Come to think of it," I eyed him suspiciously, "sometimes I still do."

He laughed.

"No it just when you think no ones looking you dropped all your defences and you become very readable. But, it was always very clear to me when you are worried even when you are all smiles or frowns, I can always tell." He shrugged, his hand still stroking my face gently.

"Should we go and see the Father now?" I asked, feeling a little breathless for some reason, maybe it had something to do with this man who took so much interest in my facial expressions and what I was thinking.

I felt my love for him roar into life inside of me and it was very hard for me not to just kiss him hard and passionately right there and then in the car, but I figured since the Father was actually coming this way I had better restrain myself for the time being.

"Susannah! Jesse! Welcome, Welcome!" Father Dom greeted as we met him half way across the student car park. It was too weird to go park in the staff car park, even though there was no one else parked there, I just felt safer parking in the students' car park.

"Hey Father Dom!" I called back cheerfully, because I was cheerful. I was genially pleased to see him. Father Dom hasn't changed much over the five years, come to think of it neither had I much, except for my hair being longer, waist length in fact and I was now only a head shorter than Jesse instead of being like two heads shorter, which is a good thing that I had grown that bit more cause Jesse, the jerk, grew at least three cm taller since he came back to life, very annoying but at least now the gap between mouths isn't so great as it once was.

"How are you both?" Father Dom asked brightly as we walked towards his office.

"Very well thank you and yourself?" Jesse answered for both of us, knowing that I would start complaining about the heat. Ok, I know it's hot in California but I forgot just how hot it can get here. I swear, I was melting from the heat.

I was so glad when I found that Father Dom had finally installed a new air conditioner in his office, since his last one died at the beginning of the summer of my final year here and for some mad reason he didn't bother replacing it even when it was quite obvious the stupid thing was dead, he still didn't get a new one. But now he finally had, I smiled contently as the fresh cool breeze hit me as I sat down in one of the chairs beside Jesse in front of Father D's desk.

"So have either of you seen one of these 'Hell Hounds' around here yet?" Father D asked getting straight to business.

"Um, we've been here a total of a full day." I pointed out, and the full day, yesterday had been spent down at the beach in the water, where it was cool and wet and by no means hot.

"Yes, well, I wasn't sure how long it would take for you to see one." Father D muttered. I open my mouth to argue the point further but Jesse cut across me to save Father D from getting his head bitten off.

"No we haven't seen anything out of the ordinary. Actually we haven't seen anything spiritual at all; I haven't sensed any ghost while I've been here." Because Jesse had once been a ghost, a ghost for a century and a half, in fact. When he came back to life we found out that he had the ability to sense ghosts without even really thinking about it. He can look at an old house or building and just tell me how many ghosts are inside of it and how old they are, which was rather creepy at first but it's an extremely useful tool. He's also better at talking down a (or several) angry ghost, while I, if he can't reason with them, continue to kick their ghostly butts into being reasonable. Thankfully Jesse realises this is sometimes necessary and hasn't taken on Father Dom's way of treating ghosts.

"Yes, I haven't seen a ghost for quite sometime myself, nor has Paul." He winced as soon as he spoke the forbidden name and waited for the explosion. Which… didn't come, Jesse just shrugged, his face blank of emotion and I… ok, it's hot and I was feeling sick, so I couldn't be bothered to get irritated at the mention of Paul's name, anyway there was no real point hating the guy anymore since he was actually, apparently, helping us solve this problem.

"Weird, maybe they all went on holidays to get away from this heat." I muttered. Both men stared at me sceptically.

"I was being sarcastic." I defended myself. Jesse rolled his eyes at me and Father D just shook his head.

"Susannah, please be serious, Ghost's are disappearing all over the place. This is a serious matter."

"Or the reason there are no ghosts around might be because none of them are holding grudges or have finally decided to move on." I pointed out, once again the sceptical look from the two of them.

"What? It's an option!" I defended myself again, glaring at Jesse. Father Dom I could understand not siding with me on this, but Jesse… hey, I had dated him for five years and known him for just over six, he was suppose to side with me and support me, but once again he was siding against me.

"Or those stupid Hell dog things have collected up the ghosts." I grumbled.

"That seems more likely." Jesse said softly.

"How is it more likely? Personally I'd rather go with Suze theories that they've all moved on to where ever or at least gone on holidays." a sarcastic voice from the doorway behind us said.

"You're only agreeing with my theories to get out of doing any ghost hunting." I shot back, swivelling in my chair to glare up at Paul. Paul just grinned at me. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him.

Oklong story short, I don't hate Paul, neither does Jesse for that matter, we just don't like him much very; it really has more do with him continually trying to hit on me (though it was more to wind up Jesse then anything else) during year 12 with Jesse actually being alive and more than willing to punch him more than once, more than anything he has done in the past. We've pretty much forgiven him for all the pains he caused during the ghost business of things.

It's just fun making fun of him and now it's also sort of fun watch him and Jesse having glaring competitions every time they meet.

Jesse and Paul don't like each other full stop, even if they hadn't had history prier to Jesse becoming alive and human again, they were never destined to be great mates.

So upon his arrival the two men started their glaring competition that so far had no winners and could go on for hours if no one interrupted them and I found it too amusing at that moment to bother them and was quite happy to time how long they could go at it for, but Father D on the other hand wasn't in the mood to watch yet another glaring match.

"Um, can we please return to subject at hand?" Father D asked loudly to get Jesse and Paul's attention.

"Whatever you want D." Paul shrugged, winking at me. I shot him a 'in your dreams' look before swivelling once again on my chair to face Father D again.

"So your plan of action to solve this growing problem is?" I asked him. Father D blinked and looked rather stunned. He didn't have anything, I realised, just like us, he didn't have an idea or plan or anything, except for a vague idea that the Hell Hounds were behind the disappearances.

"Well that's helpful." Paul said sarcastically. I fought the urge to kick him.

"Do you have any ideas then?" Jesse asked him coolly.

"Actually, I do." Paul said smugly, "or better yet I have information to help create plans?"

"Oh yeah? What information?" I was curious, I wondered if Paul's Grandfather, Dr Slaski had found something of use.

"Well, it defiantly Hell Hounds that are rounding up all the ghosts and it's a witch rather than a Mediator that summoning them and looks they are being summon for some revenge ritual or something…" he paused as I let out a little giggle. He rolled his eyes at me in exasperation.

"Oh come on Suze! You believe in ghosts but not the existence of witches."

"No, I believe in witches but actual magical ones?" I giggled.

"Sure, you travelled threw time and back again didn't you? And you exorcised really bad ghosts, so in a way you could consider yourself a witch too." I stopped giggling at this. Paul beamed in triumph.

"Well if I'm a witch, then so are you." I shot back after a moment of thought. Paul blinked and thought for a moment before actually sticking out his tongue at me.

"Warlock." He argued regaining his composure.

"Warlock is only the male term for witch." I sniggered, "and you can't say wizard because you don't have a staff or do anything vaguely wizard like."

"Which would be?"

"I don't know but I don't think many wizards do what we do." I made a mental note to google up information about Wizards later so to make sure that I was actually right about what I was arguing about.

Paul opened his mouth to throw a smart and probably rude reply my way but was stopped by Father Dom coughing uncomfortably from where he sat.

Oh right, Catholic priest, witches aren't a going thing with him. Ooo, I hope his hasn't got any firewood handy.

"Oh sorry Father." Paul said smoothly, "Oh Father!" His eyes went bright and I figured he had just stumbled across the same train of thought as I just had. He grinned.

"You haven't any fire wood handy do you, because it's a bit hot to be burned at the stake, but winter should be fine. I should be able schedule you in between my teaching potions class and flying my broom stick around London." I sniggered and to my surprised so did Jesse. I hadn't figured his get the references, but obviously my dragging him to the movies to see the films had done him more good then I thought.

Father Dom, however, didn't look amused.

"We are Mediators." He said firmly and we all fell silent immediately under his glare.

"Um, so a, um, witch is summoning the Hell Hounds?" I asked Paul.

"Yeah, I mean, there aren't any other Mediator's around that we know of and plus Gramps has this old artefact that detects when witch magic is being used."

"That would have been helpful in Salem." I whispered to Jesse, who just nodded in agreement.

"So what it glows or something to let you know if magic is being used?" Jesse asked Paul looked genially interested.

"Yeah, something like that, it makes this howling sound if the magic is real close, but it hasn't done that in weeks, not since we saw the first Hell Hound."

"I wonder what he/she is doing with these Hell Hounds?" I wondered out loud staring at the wall behind Father D.

"Revenge, obviously." Paul said.

"It's got to be more than that; I mean this person is taking ghosts from both here and New York, why? Where's the connection? There is no pattern here at all." I complained.

"Maybe its more than one person doing this." Jesse shrugged.

"A Coven of witches have come to play." Paul grinned and Father Dom cringed. I let out a weak giggle more from Father Dom reaction than to what Paul had suggested; actually the idea was making me cringe as well.

* * *

"You seriously think its witches?" I asked Paul as he, Jesse and I head in the direction of the beach. We had just finished our meeting with Father D and thought that we deserved a swim and since we had all been packed for the beach we could go straight a way.

"Gramps seems to think so," he shrugged.

I smiled, Paul had far more faith in his Grandfather then anyone had had in years.

"How is he anyway?" Jesse asked.

"Eh, happier, I guess, he's working on a new book about stuff in the supernatural side of the world." Jesse and I looked at him.

"As in, what? Exactly." I asked curious. Paul's face went a little red in colour.

"Um the existence of Vampire's, Werewolves, Witches, you know that sort of stuff."

"What did he find out?" Jesse was looking even more curious then me.

"More than I wanted to know." Paul grumbled.

"Like?"

"Like the facts that these things actually exist."

"Are you serious?"

"Yup!" He grumbled, "Met one, a Werewolf. It was freaky. I counted my lucky stars that he could control his changes. Apparently proper Werewolves can keep their heads when they transform." He informed us. He grinned a little at our hanging mouths and wide eyes.

"Don't worry, he's gone back to Alaska now, he just dropped by to say Hi to Gramps. Apparently they went exploring all around the world together in Gramps younger days." Paul explained. Jesse seemed to calm down at this but me; my mouth was still hanging open as if my jaw muscles had forgotten how to function.

"Suze? You ok?" Paul asked me with a teasing grin which snapped me back to reality.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just surprised that's all." I shrugged; Jesse nodded his head in agreement with me

Paul shrugged and walked off towards the shops. As soon as he was out of sight I turned to Jesse.

"So what do you think about all this?"

"I don't know _querida_, I really don't know." He mumbled and pulled me into a one arm hug and kissed my forehead.

"Beach?" I asked him softly. His worried face broke into a soft smile and he hugged me tighter to him.

"Yeah, let's go."

Jesse loves the ocean, almost as much as he loves the land.

I remember the first time we came down to the beach when he first became human, ok, alive again. We hadn't swum, a bit too cold to swim at that time, but we had sat on the beach watching the wave's crash upon the shore. Jesse had watched them with awe and had actually gone knee deep into the ocean. He had tried to coax me to come and stand with him but there was no way I was going in that cold water. He had laughed at me but didn't pester me any longer.

Now, Jesse was still of awe of the ocean but he was defiantly a man of the land and it would take a lot of convincing before he'd willingly leave it behind and spend, say months at sea. Not that I actually see the opportunity popping up in any near future of ours.

"Suze!"

We had just stepped on to the beach when I heard my name being yelled out by two familiar voices. I turned on my heels and grinned at my two best friends waving at us from under a huge beach umbrella.

Under normal circumstances, they would have run up to meet us, but with Cee-Cee being seven months pregnant (though covered with a baggy t-shirt and shorts, you could hardly tell) they had thought better than to risk it.

Well Cee-Cee had thought better than to risk it, but Adam, well he's wasn't the one pregnant, so as soon as we got close he bounded up from where he had been sitting close beside Cee-Ceeand came to meet us and gave me a hug.

"Your married and you have a baby on the way." I teased him as sound as he hugged me.

"Aw, so you're breaking our affair this early?" he asked me with mocking sadness.

"Adam, you cheat." Cee-Ceesighed and beamed at me and Jesse as she tried to get to her wobbling feet. Seeing what his wife was trying to do, Adam bounded back over to her and helped her to her feet. Adam, despite his numerous faults was a sweet, humorous guy and a wonderful and protective husband to Cee-Cee.

As soon as Cee-Ceehad found balance on her feet, I gave her gentle hug.

I had really missed her. I mean, I love Gina to bits, but Cee-Cee though pushy in her own way, she at least knows her limits with how far she can push me with my secrets and she's quite happy to keep the fact the Jesse was once a ghost to herself. She hadn't told anyone not even Adam.

"How are you?" I asked, grinning at her. She rolled her eyes back at me and replied.

"This little bugger won't stop kicking my kidneys. I swear I'm gonna be a soccer Mom with the way he kicks." She grumbled to me, ignoring Adam's hopeful look at that comment.

I laughed, "So the baby is a boy?" Jesse asked. He looked thrilled; actually Jesse always looks thrilled at the mention of new life. I guess being dead for so long might make one look down on life but with death comes life and Jesse seemed to be one of the few people I knew who understood the concept completely.

"I – we think it's a boy but every time we go for ultrasound the baby's back is always to us, so we don't know." Cee-Cee sighed, giving her swollen belly a quick rub.

"Still could be a girl." I pointed out. Cee-Ceepulled a face but Adam shrugged, he didn't really mind. Boy or girl he could live with either, proving that he has grown up over the years. He is still a bit of a clown now and again, but he does use his brains more now.

He and Cee-Cee haven't been married long, seven, eight months "cough" honeymoon baby "cough". They've had a pretty solid relationship from where it started in high school, only a few fights that where patched up after two days of silence.

I'm serious, these two are hopeless! When they do fight, they get all depressed and are desperate to get back together again but their pride was the only things getting in the way at times though Adam's pride is usually the first to crumble.

Anyway, they were both doing well; they had rented a small flat close to the beach, not so close that it was beyond them in mortgage but close enough for Cee-Cee and Adam to have a brag about it when I was in New York, freezing my butt off.

Both of them work at News Station with Mom, Cee-Cee is a researcher and though she's goaling to be a full time reporter and Adam is my Mom's cameraman, which is rather amusing really.

How Mom manages to keep a straight face for a serious story with Adam around is beyond me.

"You still not sure what you want to be?" Cee-Cee asked me as we head up the steps from the beach to the fish and chip shop that had grown to have quite a reputation of having some of the best fish and chips on the Northern Coast of California, so the tourist population had peaked quite considerably around here since the shop open.

"Eh?" I stared at her blankly as I relished in the smell of hot chips and the scent fresh, real fish being grilled.

Cee-Cee rolled her pink eyes at me.

"Career. Your still not sure what Career you want, right?" I felt my face go red.

I had always felt a little stupid when everyone, even Jesse, talked about their dreams for their futures and I still had no idea what I wanted to do with mine, well except for the part where I was with Jesse forever, that part never changed.

"I'll figure it out." I said firmly. Cee-Cee laughed making me scowl.

"What?"

"That's just so you, determine to make sure no one worries about you even though your so worried yourself." She snorted.

"Please tell me you haven't been talking to Gina." I begged. She just smiled secretively at me which immediately gave me my answer.

"I should never have introduced you two." I grumbled more to myself than to Cee-Cee. She laughed at me again. Resisting the urge to stick my tongue out at her, I went back to my previous activity which was looking at everything, trying to spot any changes that I might have missed yesterday.

A flicker of movement from the beach car park caught my eye. I felt my stomach do a somersault as I looked over to it to have a better look.

It was a Hellhound, on the prowl, following a human woman with curly blond hair.

"Cee-Cee, wait here, if Jesse comes tell him I need him in the car park." I hissed at Cee-Cee before sprinting off towards the car park.

"Suze? Is that actually you?" Oh great, the woman I was trying save, was Kelly.

Kelly Prescott, the girl who had been my on and off "friend" threw my years at Junipero Serra Mission Academy. Great.

"Yeah, it is. Hi Kelly." I managed to smile at her, even though my eyes were transfixed on the Hellhound behind her, which had stopped, its head cocked to one side, peering at me with what I guess was curiosity.

"Oh my god, it's been like forever. How are you?" I was at first a little confused as to why Kelly was so chirpy to see me because she pretty much hated me all threw our last year of high school, for two main reasons.

One, cause in year 12 I wasn't voted as class vice president, I was voted for class president and won to and… I didn't even do anything. Cee-Cee informed me that was why I won, I didn't try to bribe anyone like Kelly and her crew, I just kept to the truth, plain and simple and I won.

The second reason was Paul. Kelly loved Paul; Paul just didn't feel the same way back. To cut a really long and boring story short, she was jealous because every so often Paul would come and hang with me and my small group of friends and that drove her mad which just made Paul laugh at her. Did I mention that while I was class president, Paul was my vice president. Funny how things turn out, huh?

Anyway our class actually had a lot of fun that year; we did a lot of fun things, like beach cook outs and stuff like that and just made a final year at school fun.

"Suze?"

The growing frustration in her voice broke threw my thoughts bring me back to reality.

"I'm great, really great, still with Jesse. Do you want come and sit with us for a bit and we can catch up and stuff." I was trying to steer her away from the Hellhound into an area where there were more people, with the far less likelihood of the evil dog attacking her, hopefully… that or I was luring it to the beach for it go on a mass slaughtering rampage. Great.

"Um, well I'd love to" such a lie, you could so see that she was lying, "but my boyfriend is just parking the car than we're heading off to lunch at that new restaurant on the beach side." She smirked at me and I rolled my eyes. She was trying to make me jealous without saying my boyfriend is better then yours. He's richer, hotter and you get what I mean. Normally I would have retaliated but at that moment I was more than a little worried by the fact that the Hellhound wasn't doing anything but watching us. Maybe it would attack; maybe it was never going to attack, just watching. But why would it want to watch Kelly?

I sighed, these creatures made no sense to me at all.

"Ok, see you around then." I shrugged. She gave me one last smug smile and went over to link arms with, I admit, a cute guy standing beside a flashy sports car that I know Jake and Brad would have been drooling over.

"Suze."

I turned to look back at her, confused.

"Say hi to Jake for me." She said sweetly before turning her full attention on to her guy who looked maybe a tad confused.

I rolled my eyes at him and he seemed to get the message.

I looked back to where I had last seen the Hellhound and found it was gone.

Great, it was following Kelly again, walking along side a van…

Aw come on, give me a break here!

"Kelly!" I yelled. The Hellhound wasn't here to watch, no now it was in for the kill. Shit. The Hellhound was pushing the van over on to Kelly and her Boyfriend.

Kelly let out a terrified shriek and froze to the spot, unlike her boyfriend who bolted at the sight of the tipping van.

Even running full sprint wasn't enough to miss the full impact of the toppling van. I managed to push Kelly out of the way only to be hit in the back of the shoulder by the falling van.

Now, how I wasn't crushed by the van when I went down under it after I was hit by it, I still don't know.

One minute I was in the shadow of where the van was going to land and the next I was lying next to Kelly, who was screaming, making my headache even worse.

Thank you very much.

All around about me I could hear more screams that couldn't just belong to Kelly.

"_Querida_?" among the screams I heard the most wonderful voice calling to me.

"_Querida_?" I felt a pair of gentle hands moving under my head and waist, careful not to jostle me to much, moving me even further away from the fallen van.

"Jesse," I whispered, "Hellhound… It was a Hellhound… It was after…" my voice trailed off as the pain in my shoulder grew more painful, so much so that the only way to escape the pain was to black out which was exactly what I did.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Ok, so that was the chapter, I hope you liked it and I hope I did all the old characters' justice, epically Paul, I don't like the guy much, but I love his humour most of the time.  
I now have a much better idea of what I'm doing with this story and I know what's going to happen in coming chapters. So, reviews would be much appreciated, thanks.  
I'll update again if people want me too, so please review and let me know what you all think.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** Hi Everyone, well everyone who is reading this 'shrugs'.  
Now we get to see how Suze's is doing and finally find out what wrong with her, though you've probably all figured it out by now, cause you're all smart people and those who haven't, well your still smart and your in for a bit of a surprise.  
Still trying to get my head around how much has changed! I keep pressing the wrong button, I try to review and i end up favouriting something I didn't want to, though most of the things i review i do favourite anyway but that's beside the point, it's annoying, though I have gotten better with how many Doctor Who fanfic's I've read in the past two or so weeks.

_**Only for those who care about Doctor Who rambling  
**_I'm at the moment addicted to the New Doctor Who series, which is just typical cos it just finished and i only saw the last two episodes of the last season, which i was a little peeved about. Just my luck, really, i have no idea its on then i'll randomly stubble across it again, i'll be super happy only to find out its the last or second last episode of the season (that happen with seasons three, two and one (though one i wasn't all that into Doctor Who).  
Had a massive freak out when i saw season three's last episode, i was so confused, I didn't have a clue who Martha was or Jack and David Tennant was just some shrank little thing or old man, but now i know the whole story and i'm good, except for certain things about season 5 'grumble, grumble'

Ok, i'm done grumbling and rambling, so you can go and read now.  
Thanks and Please Review.

**

* * *

Chapter 5**

"Ow" I mumbled threw my dry lips as I started to come to.

I was feeling awfully heavy, yet at the same time floaty and I found it hard to move or do anything.

"Ow, I think is an understatement." A soft voice whispered from my right… I think.

"Jesse." It wasn't a question; I just need to speak out his name in the delight of him being there.

"Yes q_uerida_." I felt his large hand gently press against my cheek.

"What's the damage report?" I whispered. He let out a small sigh of relief.

"Not as bad as it looks. You haven't damaged anything major. Neither your spine nor collar bone are broken, which is a miracle considering you were almost crushed by a van. Your right shoulder and part of your back is badly bruised and they'll hurt for awhile but that's the worst of it." His voice was so full of relief and joy that listening to it almost made me forget about the pain that most accumulated in my right shoulder.

"How are we in here?" Jesse and I looked at the door of the empty ward as a female Doctor walked in, smiling brightly at us. She was quite pretty, with blonde hair pulled into a ponytail.

She looked like one of those bright and cheery talked on one of those over rated Soap Operas.

"I feel like hell." I mumbled. She laughed sympathetically, before opening up the folder she had been carrying under her arm and flicked threw it.

"Well, that's understandable, having a freak van almost crush you. They said that it toppled over because of an earthquake." Jesse and I glanced at each other and rolled our eyes.

The Doctor continued on, not noticing our knowing looks.

"They really need to monitor for earthquakes more carefully." She added with a sigh and continued to flick threw the folder.

"But anyway you and Miss Prescott are very lucky. You in particular," we both gave her an odd look and she crossed her arms and even had the nerve to look disapproving of us.

"I know it all very well to try and save someone when you see them in danger but you need to consider yourself a little more, especially in your condition." She scowled us. We continued to stare at her blankly.

"Eh?" I asked blankly. She frowned at me, her face growing more frustrated.

"Weren't you thinking about your baby's safety at all when you were running to push Miss Prescott out of the way of the falling van?"

"Baby?" I whispered, the word barely redigesting in my brain.

"Yes." She frowned at us, now confused too. "Didn't you know? Your about five months along." She informed us.

There was a loud clunk then thud beside me. Jesse had toppled off his chair, staring at the Doctor as if she was insane. Then the light bulb clinked in my head.

"I'm how _FAR_ along?" I almost shrieked.

"Five months."

"But that's impossible." I yelled at her, "I took all those stupid tests and I still have my period. I'm not pregnant!"

She looked back at her folder and shook her blonde head.

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not." I argued back, wishing Jesse would hurry up and get over his shock so that he could help back me up on this.

"Miss Simon, you are pregnant, five months along. The baby is perfectly healthy; it suffered no trauma during the accident and is developing as it should."

"Shouldn't it be either a he or she on your scan things by now?" I asked a little dully. She let out a small sigh.

"Its back was too the screen when we were checking on it for any trauma, so we couldn't see its sex."

"But it is healthy." Jesse had finally pulled himself out of his own little shocked world and was getting to his feet, though he leant heavily against my bed.

"Its seems to be, yes." The Doctor agreed, starting to smile again.

I raised my left arm and rubbed my face wearily.

"_Querida_, are you alright?"

"I just found out I am pregnant, do you think I'm aright?" I asked weakly. I stared at my tummy.

Only now did I really notice the roundness to it I had merely thought I was putting on weight because of Jesse's cooking, but clearly now that wasn't the only reason why.

"I'm an idiot, aren't I?" I asked him softly.

"No, you're not… ok maybe a little bit, but_ querida_ as you pointed out so many times before, you didn't have all the symptoms of a pregnant woman." Jesse soothed gently, his finger's gently brushing my hair out of my eyes.

"I had enough of them to guess or to simply accept that I was. Or I could have gone to see a stupid Doctor like you told me to do ages ago, but did I listen, nope, because I was so sure I was right. God, I really am an Idiot." I ranted, repeatedly hitting my head against the head frame before Jesse grabbed the back of my head and stopped me from giving myself a concussion.

"And those stupid Dogs knew." I yelped, remembering how that one Hellhound in New York had shown such an interest in my belly.

"It probably smelt the baby or something." Jesse shrugged. He still looked in a daze, a daze I don't think he was going to shake out of for a number of days.

The female Doctor looked confused from our conversation but she knew wisely to keep her mouth shut.

"Well, you seem to be doing pretty well. We'll keep you over night just to keep an eye on you and your baby." She informed us and we nodded weakly back. She then left us to ourselves and our thoughts.

For a while we were silent, both deep in our own thoughts before I suddenly broke the silence by laughing. Jesse raised an eyebrow at my laughter.

"I'm never going to hear the end of this one." I giggled, burying my face in my hands.

"Suzie?"

"Well, looks like you're about to find out whether or not that statement is true." Jesse whispered as my mother, plus the rest of my family following behind her rushed into the ward.

"Oh Suzie!" Mom cried as she flung her arms around me, careful not to press anywhere below my head.

"Hi Mom." I greeted weakly, trying to think up the best way to inform my mother of my little surprise.

"Sweetie, why are you so determined to give me a heart attack?" Mom groaned as she sat in the chair Jesse had been sitting in moments before.

"It's not intentional." I muttered.

"I don't care; just don't give me anymore nasty surprises." Mom ordered sternly. I glanced sideways at Jesse and felt my cheeks begin to flame.

"Um, yeah. Mom, I… we have a surprise for you." I said trying to sound calm and collect though inside I was still a muddled mess of emotions.

Mom eyes went widen and everyone else move closer. All of them looking worried to some degree.

"I'm not dying." I complained, the levels of relief varied throughout the room.

"Of cause your not." Mom said firmly, though she looked the most relieved out of the whole group.

"So what's with the "I'm- scared- shitless" look for?" Dopey asked me. I smiled at him sarcastically and made a rude hand gesture at him, before frowning.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I demanded or snarled at him, depending on how you wanted to hear it.

"I came home three hours ago. Five minutes after I get in threw the front door I'm chased out again because someone landed herself in hospital. _Again!_" he scowled at me and I made the rude hand gesture at him again. He snorted at the hand and smirked confidently.

"Just wait until I get out this bed and I'll wipe that confident smirk off your face." I sneered at him and cracked my knuckles. Dopey cringed and back up and away from me. Beside my head I heard Jesse sigh in exasperation and a gentle hand being placed on my uninjured shoulder.

"_Querida_, the surprise remember." He whispered in my ear. My eyes grew wide again and my nervous sky rocketed. _Did we have to tell them today?_

"What's up?" Andy asked looking from Jesse to me then back.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nervous. It wasn't helping but hey it gave me air to breath in my last moments of life.

I quickly wondered how mad my mother was going to be about finding out about this, about the fact that I was pregnant and had been pregnant and not known about it for five months.

"I'm pregnant." I mumbled.

"Huh?"

"I'm pregnant." I repeated, grinning nervously at Mom, who for the first time ever, looked speechless.

"How far along are you?" Andy asked.

"Five months."

"Susannah Meggin Simons!" Mom looked furious and I guess she really had a right to be, I mean to anyone who didn't know the circumstances they'd think I had kept this to myself just for the hell of it.

"I only found out today." I defended, which shut everyone up.

"How did you only find out today?" Dave asked, the first one to get over the shock of the news.

"It's complicated." I gulped.

"How?"

"She didn't show many of the symptoms to suggest that she was pregnant and none of the test proved positive." Jesse finally stepped in.

"Oh." That was all any of them could think to say.

"Is it a boy or girl?" Carmen suddenly asked brightly.

"Um," I looked up a Jesse. He shrugged and I looked back at Carmen's and my Mother curious stares. "We don't know yet."

"Don't seem to know a lot at the moment do you?" Brad snorted. I cracked my knuckles threateningly at him again and he cringed back behind Andy and Jake, both of whom just glare at him and Dave even mouthed "world's greatest wimp," at him. I hoped Dave would get any trouble from Dopey for that comment.

* * *

"You know," I muttered to Jesse once everyone had left for the evening, "the more I think about the more I'm sure I'm losing my mind from all this craziness."

Jesse, who was sitting beside me on the hospital bed, let out a little snort and kissed my temple gently before arguing.

"But _querida_ crazy people don't think or know that their crazy, so I'm fairly sure your ok."

"But," I argued back, starting to grin at the exasperated glare Jesse was giving me, "by thinking I'm ok, because I think I'm crazy, is saying I don't think I'm crazy so I might just be crazy."

I had completely and utterly confounded him and he spent the next five or so minutes trying to figure out how he could get around my statement and win the argument.

He eventually gave up only because he was told to bugger off by the nurses saying that visiting hours were over. Its times like these I think Jesse wouldn't have minded being a ghost again so that he could have stayed with me without being noticed.

* * *

**Author's Note: **So that's chapter 5, chapter 6 will be up whenever, probably coming week, dunno yet it really depends on what sort of week I'm going to have.  
Congrats to those who figure it out about Suze though it wasn't really hard, i wasn't being completely subtly about it but that was because the kid is important to the story in alot of ways, you can start connecting the dots in you want, I'm curious to see if you can if you get it right.  
Thanks for reading and please review.  
Thanks. Bye.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** Hey Everyone! Rather longer chapter coming your way, so be happy, it took me ages to write it, but now alot of things that were confusing people will make sense after this chapter. This is an information chapter, but instead of being told what's going on the normal, boring way, I added time travel to my little concution of Mediators, Ghosts, Hell Hounds, Witches and with that tiny dash of mention Werewolf previously (still tosing up whether to add him in or not). We also get find out more about Suze's and Jesse's baby.  
But I'm going to shut up now and not spoil it all for you and let you read.  
Enjoy and please Review.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

Finding out I was pregnant changed pretty much everything not just my life but it was making my holiday really unenjoyable, more so than before.

Everybody was so careful with me and around me, I wanted to strangle them.

Ok, I like all girls' likes to be pampered at least once and awhile but not every bloody day.

Mom is the worst, as soon as I came home the following day she had this long set of rules that of what I could do and couldn't do, what I was allowed to eat and wasn't and so on and so forth. What was worst was the rest of the family followed her example and watched me like a hawk.

The only reason the whole family isn't in hospital by now because of numerous injuries is because of Jesse.

Finding out I was pregnant _has_ made Jesse protective of me, but hey, he's always been protective of me, so there is no real difference.

Ok, so he's a little bit more protective than he has been previously, but he's not overbearing with his desire to keep me and the baby safe. He's still allowing me do normal things, just telling me to take them slower and that if there's any fighting to do, he would like it if was allowed to take the first few swings before I stepped in. Not that we'd been in many fights of late, but you understand what I mean.

Jesse's reasoning as to why he letting me on a longer lead than my family is one, he quite likes living and doesn't want to stuff up his second chance of being able to live. He'd like to be part of his child's life and not as a see-threw, floating ghost.

The second reason is that in his original time; women, even in the later stages of their pregnancy still went about their normal days work, albeit slower and maybe less to do, but they still did it, they didn't put their feet up and eat chocolate in front of the TV… despite the fact they didn't have one back then… ok you get what I mean.

When I finally told Gina that she was right about me being pregnant (this took a lot of coaxing on Jesse's and Cee-Cee's part to do. I didn't want to be laughed at then told 'I told you so' for the rest of the conversation. A lot of chocolate bribing was needed to get me anywhere that damn phone), she did exactly what I expected she would do, she screamed, laughed and told me 'I told you so' repeatedly for next half hour or so.

It was very hard not for me to just hang up on her, since I was getting enough scolding from home (Mom being still annoyed with me for taking so long to figure it out, even with my explanation as to why I thought I wasn't), to not have to put up with her chiding too.

Cee-Cee was pretty good about the whole thing too, she just accept that I was without much fuss and went back to re-editing the news report that Mom was going to read that coming evening. Adam was a bit more excited by the news, bouncy and all that, like Doc. Its amazing how excited two, well, men can get over babies, I mean, I used to think it was just a woman's thing but obviously not.

Everyone is fussing about the baby. Everyone except me, I mean, I'm the mother, I should be the worst of the lot but I keep carrying on like normal, like I never found out I had another life growing inside of me. Maybe I'm still in denial, I mean, I didn't know I was pregnant for five and something months, I ignored the signs and Mom wasn't about to let me for get about that.

My guilt trip grew longer and longer with Mom.

* * *

"I still can't believe you had no idea for five months." Mom complained as we walked down threw the mall looking at shops. Baby shops….

"I'm sorry, I was just… busy." I muttered

"No one can be that busy to miss the obvious signs of pregnancy." Mom grumbled loudly, causing several other shoppers to look at us, confused and amused. I restrain the urge to hit them all.

I rubbed my temple to try and stop my oncoming headache without much success.

My head was throbbing and I felt ill. It sort of remained me of how I felt when I had time travelled or after I had been in the Spirit Corridor.

"Suze? Honestly, could you please show a little interest while we're shopping for your baby's needs!" Mom huffed in annoyance. "Suze"

But I was gone.

Ok, my body remain where it was… ok not exactly where it was, if it had remain were it was I would have still be standing up and without bruises, no my body flopped to the tiled mall floor and my spiritual self hurtle off somewhere that I had no control over with a panicked ache in my stomach.

Then I crashed into something solid.

"Ye-ouch!"

Orhhaw that hurt!

I crashed into a statue of sorts.

Where the hell was I? I could hear voices, which I wasn't sure whether that was a good sign or not.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Ah Duh! Huge spiritual mean ass dog stalking ghosts, yeah. Their really hard to miss."

"But you've only seen it the once, correct?"

"Yup."

"How do you know it wasn't just your imagination playing tricks on you?"

"I think I know the difference between my imagination and reality, Wonderboy!"

_Wonderboy__?_

I knew that voice.

"Oh, you do think do you?"

I knew that one too. Actually I knew all three male voices, and I was confused as hell as to why I was hearing them. They sounded so different! Ok only two of them sounded really different, but that was only 'cause their voices seemed to be younger then what I was now used to hearing.

And one that I loved hearing the most sounded, _floaty_? Like it had when he had been a… ghost?

I looked around me wildly and almost gagged. I knew where I was! But it seemed fairly impossible that I was there, when I had been in the mall only moments ago.

I had apparently crashed into the wall of the front office of Junipero Serra Mission Academy and the voices I was hearing were coming from Father Dominic's office.

"So what are you fella's going to tell Suze? You can't keep her in the dark much longer, she'll strangle you both." Paul's voice, but not the voice of Paul I knew now and counted as a friend. No this voice belonged to the Paul that I had first met and feared for a good period of time, afraid of what he could do and what he could make me loose.

"Telling Susannah about these great Dogs, might be um very, very bad." I heard Father Dominic say. I let out a growl of annoyance. Thanks for the confidence Father!

"Oh she'll love that." Paul snort sarcastically. For once Paul was right about something.

"She won't like it." Jesse… my heart started to pound in delight at hearing his voice. But him agreeing with Paul?! Oh and you could so hear he wasn't thrilled by it either.

"So, what? Every time we see one of that thing, we tell her to look the other way?" Paul laughed harshly.

"I'm just afraid that she might do something very, very stupid. If she feels they are a threat to her family or anyone else, she will retaliate and I'm very afraid of those consciences." Father Dom said. I could hear the worry in his voice as he spoke and felt my frustration and annoyance at him faded and I felt touched by his concern for me. Ok, we didn't always see eye-to-eye… ok we rarely ever did, but that did stop us from caring for the other and I could now see (hear) how much Father Dom actually worried for me as a teenager… well I did do some rather reckless things. They got the job done, but I usually ended up in hospital or with some injury or other and that's not counting all the damage that has been inflicted on to the school, houses, building, time too, so on and so forth.

But now I was really confused, had those three known about the Hell Hounds for years and never told me or what?

I suddenly heard a growl behind me… _Oh Crap!_

I turned around slowly and groaned, of all the stupid ones to appear it just had to be this one, the one I had met in New York and seemed to really, really hate me. The one I had somehow hurt.

"Was that a growl?" I heard Paul suddenly ask and the sounds of quick footsteps from the Father's office, but I wasn't paying attention to any of them anymore, I was sprinting down the corridor into the main sections of the school with a angry Hell Hound at my heels.

"Hey!"

I heard someone, I think Paul, yeah it was Paul, yelling after me, but I just threw my hand back and made a rude hand gesture in his general direction before picking up my pace.

I ran into my old year twelve homeroom and slammed the door shut just as I heard the Hell Hound turning into the corridor.

"This can not be happening." I groaned, burying my face into my hands as I pressed my back against the door, just for good measures.

When I had just started to run and made my hand gesture back at Paul, I had caught a glimpse of them and that glimpse had almost made my heart stop.

Paul looked about sixteen, exactly like he had when I had first met him; Father Dom looked the same as ever and Jesse… Jesse was see-threw, wearing the clothes that I had been extremely fond of, especially the shirt, but he was still a ghost. He was still dead, which meant I wasn't with him and that hurt like hell to think about.

I felt my heart clench and place a hand on my stomach, where our baby lay. We weren't together and he was still a ghost so it was hard to belief that this little ratbag actually existed inside of me. a small wave a nausea however let me know that this little one did exist and did not like being ignored. I rubbed my hand against my belly, trying to calm it down.

"Susannah?"

I wasn't ready to hear his voice, but I heard it anyway.

I looked towards the windows, with the great view of the ocean, to where Jesse stood; arms crossed looking so gorgeous and so unimpressed at my being there I almost felt sixteen again.

Instead of swooning all over him, which I really wanted to do, did I mention I really, really missed that shirt where you could see his…. concentrate.

I, instead, scowled at him.

"Don't you start and keep your voice down or it'll…" the door that I had been leaning on suddenly bulked under the pressure of something ramming into it.

"Ah crap, its found us!" I groaned, "and why did it have to be that one!" I wailed as I shoved my back against the door.

"Susannah? What do you mean?" Jesse moved in beside me and pressed his back against the wooden door as well.

"About what?" I demanded, flinching at every jolt the door gave as it sent spasms up my spine and upsetting my baby. Oh god, what if this hurts the baby!

The thought of damage to the baby was almost my downfall, for I started to panic, taking my back up off the door, quite happy to just leave Jesse to the Hell Hound while I found away to escape and save the baby from harm, except.

"Susannah!" Jesse snapped at me, forcing me to focus.

"Right, sorry." I mumbled pressing myself back against the door. After a moment of feeling nothing but the door trembling behind me, I suddenly felt hot. Jesse was staring down at me with the most curious expression on his face.

"What?" I asked him, my lips trembling along with the door with each hit the Hell Hounds head made. He frowned at me in confusion.

"You look, I don't know how, but you look different… older." His dark eyes searched my face, staring deep into my eyes as if they held the answers that he seek

"Oh believe me, you're different too! Very different from what I'm used to." _Yeah, your alive where I am, though not for long 'cause as soon as I get back, I'm strangling live you, Paul and Father Dom, for not telling me about all this._

Jesse just looked confused but pushed whatever question he was about to ask out of his mind as he looked up at the door, at the huge creaks appearing in it.

"Ah, Run?" I asked him, he gave a nod and we bolted for the windows, managing to find one that hadn't been looked by a key just as the Hell Hound broke the door.

"Ah!" I squeak and jumped out the window, thanking the heavens that the window was on the ground floor.

"Run!" Jesse ordered and snatched up my hand and started dragging me around the school towards the Church.

"The church?" I yelled at him, but he didn't reply, just shoving me threw the doors and slamming them behind us.

We heard a loud howl from out side and scratching at the door, though it was hardly anything impressive, more like the dog wanting to come inside the house because it wanted to be with humans.

"Jesse, did you find the…" Father Dom had been walking down the aisle before stopping when he saw me.

"Oh dear." Was all he managed to say, before flopping onto a bench.

"Father, you think you've got it bad, you've got nothing compared to me." I grumbled at him, while eyeing the door, waiting for it shatter like the last one had.

"Really?" Father Dom asked looking a little amused.

"Yeah, you have what? One of those things running amok? I have like five back home. Which I have no idea how I'm going to get back there since I don't even know how I got here in the first place." I grumbled, kicking a pillar lightly.

The two men just looked at me as if I was nuts and I glared at them in return.

"Ah, Suze what happen to your hair? I swear it wasn't that long yesterday, nor were you that round either." Paul had just appeared from the side entrance of the Church.

He didn't look overly bothered by my being there or how much I looked different, actually he looked rather amused and fascinated by it all. Oh, I bet he was loving all this!

"Gee Paul, as much as you are an asshole, you don't miss a trick do you?" I growled at him, more annoyed at him because he had noted my round stomach and probably coming up with all sorts of crazy conclusion to why it was round.

I was also nervous that he might connect the dots and realise that I was not from here, from this time and from the sudden dark glint in his eyes I realise he already had connected them. _Crap!_

I glared at him and he smiled back, delight at the fact that I had just revealed that his suspicions were correct in more ways then one.

"Now, now, you two, don't start fighting each other, we have bigger problems." Father Dom warned us both; you could tell he was only saying this because he didn't want anything to break in here, not because of the Hell Hound.

"You mean the Hell Hound?" I asked, the three blinked at me. I sighed.

"Its called a Hell Hound," blank looks," it takes souls to the underworld. The most famous one was called Cerberus," more blank looks, I let out a little growl of frustration, "haven't you guys been doing any research at all on this thing?" I was close to yelling at them. They all had the grace to looked different degrees of guilt and sheepishness.

"And you have?" Paul asked me slyly. He was daring me, daring me to admit that I wasn't from here, that I had learnt how to travel threw time, though this time it wasn't my fault at all! Well, to my knowledge it wasn't.

"Yeah, actually." I snarled back. I wasn't lying; I had actually done research on these things, just not in this time.

The two men were looking between Paul and I as if they were watching a tennis match, both wearing almost the exact level of confusion on their faces.

"What's going on?" Father Dom asked us quietly. Jesse was staring at us hard, his eyes glowing with heat and dislike at the fact Paul knew something about me that he didn't. Back then I never understood Jesse's looks towards Paul as anything more than great dislike, I knew better now.

The darkness to the look was also caused from jealousy and fear that he might lose me to Paul and not in a fight, but from love. He feared back then that I might actually wake up to the laws of life and realise how stupid it was to be in love with a ghost and go out with a living, breathing person, like Paul… gag… yeah like that was going to happen, but that had been one of things that Jesse never liked about Paul and it was so obvious here like it had been a lot of times before, I just hadn't understood.

"Nothing." I muttered. Paul laughed as if it was all a great joke.

"Yeah Suze, nothing going on is it? I mean, you got extension in your hair last night and you ate a really big dinner and suddenly grew a couple of centimetres over night, yeah nothing going on at all. Oh yeah, plus you look older, like I don't know, twenty?" He was guessing but it was freaky how close he was.

I gave in then, since the light blubs were clinking in the other twos brains and it would be pointless to try and disprove all the things that Paul had just pointed out.

"Twenty-one and a half." I told him.

"Oh, so close." But he was grinning with delight, "how did you do it…?" he started to ask but I cut him off.

"I have no idea, I was in the mall with my Mom, and then I crashed into the front office wall." I shrugged, I still wasn't lying; I just wasn't telling him the whole truth that I knew how to do it on a normal day.

"But that... this is impossible." Father Dom gawked at me.

"You'd be surprise how often I hear that." I grumbled at him.

I placed a hand to my forehead, closing my eyes, feeling ill. Time travel did that to you, but it was also the baby being crabby about being ignored.

I felt a pair of cool hands on my arm pushing me onto a bench so that I wouldn't fall over from my dangerous swaying.

I open one eye and peered at Jesse's concern face, noting the sadness hidden behind the concern. _Why is he sad?_

"How far along are you?" he asked looking at my expanding belly sadly and with regret…_oh, that's why..._

"Five months." I sighed.

"I knew you were pregnant." Paul said behind Jesse sounding quite please with himself.

"Yeah and it is not yours." I snapped at him; understanding some of the happiness in his voice.

That knocked his ego down a few notches. Jesse grinned in relief as he stood up but his eyes were still on my stomach.

"Susannah?" Father Dom said quietly, looking a little annoyed. Ok, he looked more than a little annoyed he looked furious. It took me a moment to understand why.

"It wasn't plan, it just sorta happen… we are getting married," I gasped out trying to fend off the inevitable lecture I was going to get from him, "even though he hasn't actually asked me yet." I added under my breath, resisting the urge to kick Jesse.

"Maybe he hasn't asked you because he's a deadbeat." Paul teased, obviously still rather angry about the fact that I _still_ wasn't his.

"Nah, we just haven't got around to making plans." I shrugged nonchalantly.

"At lest, we know who certainly _isn't_ the father." Paul muttered, shooting Jesse a dark look. Jesse flinched and looked off into the distance.

"Nah, I'd never have a kid with Adam, Cee-Cee would murder me." I said calmly, trying to break the tension between the two. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a glaring matches and a few teasing insults rather than this 'want-to-murder-you-so-badly' atmosphere.

"How long have you had this one?" I asked Father D, changing the subject in hope to get the atmosphere to a little more pleasant, though how this conversation would make it any better I had no clue.

"Four or five days, maybe." The Father sighed heavily. "It attacked Jesse here in the school four days ago."

"Well, that's because he's a ghost! That's what Hell Hounds do; they take souls, ghosts that they find down to the Underworld." Then I frown, "but why did it go immediately after you or have other ghosts gone missing?" I was looking up a Jesse, remembering all the times that we'd both come across a Hell Hound, how the hound had always, though it showed more interest in me, it always attacked Jesse first.

"Only one ghost has gone missing, but none of the others know what happen to her." Jesse told me, I nodded.

"Anything particularly interesting about her?" I asked him. This was obvious a good question, even though he looked uncomfortable about answering it.

"Um, apparently when she was alive, she was apparently a witch of sorts." He said looking even more uncomfortable. I stared at him.

"A witch?" I asked threw barely moving lips.

"Susannah?" I heard Father Dom call my name; my mind was miles away, reeling with this small piece of information.

The only other person/ghost, to be targeted by the Hell Hound had been a witch of sorts when she had been alive. A witch was apparently summoning the Hell Hound to do his or her bidding, for whatever reason that was.

"Susannah." I shook myself back to the present or past as the case was for me.

"Um, sorry, I'm trying to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together and I think I've found some that have high possibilities of fitting together, though I'm still not hundred percent sure what the connection is yet."

"Oh that helps." Paul grumbled, I started to stick my tongue out at him, but then stopped and listen.

No scratching at the door, no nothing. It was quiet, but somehow _too_ quiet!

Then a high pitch whistle suddenly broke the silence with a shrill ringing to it.

That whistle… I had heard it before, in New York when I first saw the red Stargate.

I lurched myself to my feet to get to the window to look out to see if the red Stargate had appeared, but cringed as I did so as a sharp pain went threw my body from the direction of my stomach.

I started to fall backwards, but Jesse caught me.

"Are you alright?" he demanded staring at me in concern.

"Yeah, it's just the baby. It doesn't like me doing dangerous things. It somehow seems to know when there's danger about." Now that I had said it out loud, though it now seemed to be the most natural thing in the world to me, it also seemed a bit weird. I mean how many other unborn babies in the world let their mothers know when their in danger. Mine did, and did so often. My mind started reeling again.

If something was wrong, I start feeling sick and unable to move but yet nothing seemed to be able to harm me, even that stupid van hadn't been able to harm me.

I frown as more puzzle pieces appeared to me, trying to make me see the connection. There was connection with all the puzzle pieces. But what were they?

We scramble our way to the windows on either side of the door and peered out.

And sure enough there was the red vortex, the Hell Hound beside and… a human figure.

Dressed in a black ceremony gown, the figure patted the Hell Hound on the head while staring at the church. I could see their face but I could guess the gender was female, just from the shape of the body.

So our witch was female… big help.

"Who's that?" Paul asked.

"She's our witch." I muttered and moved for the door, ignoring the sharp panic sparking from my belly.

_Its ok, baby! I'll be fine; I just want to kick some witch butt._ I rubbed my stomach and felt it settle a little, but I could still feel my baby's panic, which I was also pretty sure wasn't normal either.

Also not normal was the warmth I was feeling in my stomach, feeling of confidence and security that I could do anything and that I was safe. I wondered if that had anything to do with my baby too.

"Suze!" I heard Paul hiss but I open the door anyway.

I could feel Jesse beside me and took comfort in that. Even though he wasn't quite my Jesse yet, it was still wonderful for him to be there with me facing this danger.

For I understood that this woman, this witch was a danger to me, to us, to our baby and for that I would stop her at all costs. I would protect my, our baby no matter what.

The witch looked straight at me as I and Jesse approached her. Her hood fell so far forward that you couldn't see anything other than her mouth and chin.

"Hello Susannah." Her voice was cool and sort of sing songy and it reminded me of another voice that I couldn't place.

"Who are you?" I asked quietly.

"Just a passer-by, nobody special." She laughed.

"Then why are you associating with those things?" I growled.

"Oh you mean these beautiful creatures, the Hell Hounds, as you call them, its no reason of yours."

"Their stealing ghosts."

"And you say that as if it's a bad thing." She chuckled. "But how can you judge me with working with Hell Hounds to accomplish my task when you have a ghost standing right beside you helping you with yours?"

"That's different, Jesse is different." I snapped.

"How is that different Susannah? How?"

"Because he is human." I whispered.

"Not at the moment he isn't." she pointed out. I felt my hands curl into fists.

"What? A lost for words?" She teased me, I took a step towards her, but Jesse stopped me, holding onto my wrist and whispered, "She is dangerous. Think about your baby," before he turn his attention to the witch.

"What do you want? Why are you using those things?" he demanded.

"And why did you set that one on Jesse." I added, scowling at the Hell Hound who snarled back.

"So many questions, so little time." She sang softly. "I can't tell you what I want, because you people wouldn't understand my reasons and I don't need to justify myself to you anyway. As for why this one went after Jesse," she looked down at the Hell Hound and for the first time while talking she lost her sing songness and she sounded generally annoyed, "he wasn't meant to be targeted; it was an accident, a confusion between past and future."

"Fine I'll reword it, why are you sending your Hell Hounds after him in my time." I demanded. She looked back at me; even though I could see her face I could feel that she was frustrated with all this talk.

"Because he is a threat, an obstacle between me and my true target."

"Which is?" Jesse demanded. He didn't sound angry at being called an obstacle, probably happy that he was one, but I could hear the worry in his voice.

"Her and the baby she carrying." She said shrugging nonchalantly pointing at me or rather at my swelling stomach. I blinked at her.

"Her?" I heard Paul yell from the Church doorway.

"More her baby than her." she said it all so casually as if we were discussing the weather instead of her wanting my baby for some sick, twisted reason.

"Why?" I growled threw gritted teeth.

"Because its powerful. Probably one of the most powerful Mediator to ever walk the Earth. I mean, you'd expect that with both parents being Mediators and the father being a resurrected ghost," I felt Jesse stiffen beside me and heard a loud "what!" from Paul's direction, but I couldn't care. I was numb; this woman wanted my baby because it was going to be powerful one day.

"That's sick." I whispered.

"It's the only way to get what I want." She said calmly. I wanted to kill her, I didn't care how, but I wanted to. I felt Jesse's grip on my wrist grow tighter, he could obvious pick up from my body of what I wanted.

"How powerful?" Jesse asked suddenly.

"What?" the b-witch asked.

"The baby, Susannah's baby, how powerful is it?" I could hear the strain in his voice. He must be so confused, his mind muddle of ideas, theories of how a ghost could be resurrected and whether or not he was that said ghost.

"Powerful enough to hid itself for five months from me and from its parents, filling its mother's head with doubt about the whole thing," she laughed, "clever baby!" she praised, "it wanted to protect its Mommy and itself from me and my lovely hounds, but I was so sure that it was you, it had to be you Susannah and that falling van proved it."

"How?" I hissed.

"To save you, your baby took you a few seconds into the future, taking you out of immediate danger of being crushed by the van to just being slightly bruised. As I said before your baby is clever, defiantly takes after it father of cause. There wasn't much power used but it was enough to alert me and my Hell Hounds and after going to Hospital and being check over the silly Doctors finding the baby within you it was only further proof that your baby is the one."

"The one what?"

She laughed.

"Sorry Susannah, but that's a secret to be later told. Oh, I'm so glad that I found you here, your baby is very hard to keep track of, my poor hound was wandering around this place trying to find you but you didn't arrive until today." She chuckled, "but that's alright I can erase the memories of these two of all this and history can get back on track. Don't want ghost boy here to get too excited over all this, knowing that you're going to come back to life and become a father of such a powerful baby does do a lot to ones head." She laughed and I looked up at Jesse's face. It was blank but there was so much emotion was going threw his dark eyes. He was in denial but there was hope, a spark of hope that what this woman was saying was true.

"It's true." I muttered to him under my breath so that only he could here. His breath became ragged and he looked down at me with such a look that I had never seen before and one I was sure I would never see again. Hope, fierce hope, determination to fight for what he was being told he could one day have.

I wondered suddenly if he would remembered this moment for a brief second when his ghost and body were in the same room, in that hospital room after my most stupid of stunts ever, with them both dying. Had this memory fuelled his desire to live? given him the strength to fight for renewed life?

"I won't let you have my Baby." I growled at her. She tilted her head and seemed to be smiling at me which anger me more.

"And how are you going to stop me?"

"I'll find a way, I will stop you."

"Oh good, I do love a challenge."

"Bitch." I hissed at her.

"Right back at you."

"I'll kill you if you hurt them," she looked at my face," if you hurt Jesse or the baby, I will kill you! I will find a way to stop whatever your planning and then kill you if you hurt them."

"Yeah, we can kill each back in our time, after the baby is born." She yawn and suddenly raised her hands.

"As much as its been talking to you its sadly time for us to leave. Susannah you just stand right there and not move while I erase these twos memories and then we'll go back, ok."

"Go _querida_," Jesse suddenly whispered in my ear. I looked up at him wildly.

"Go where?" I hissed at him as I watched the bi-witch start her chanting.

"Anywhere, just get yourself and the baby away from here, away from her." he whispered.

I felt his hand gently brush my stomach and I suddenly grabbed it, pressing his palm against my belly just as the baby kicked out for the first time since it had been within me. I saw his eyes widen with wonder and awe and his smile grew into the one I loved most.

"I love you." I told him calmly and he blinked at me in surprise. "Don't you forget that, I love you?" I ordered him firmly, though I knew he would because behind me I heard Paul groan and saw out of the corner of my eye him collapsing into a pile in the Church doorway.

"I won't." he promised anyway. He was smiling, in a different way to how he smiled when he was a ghost. He was so happy, he had hope and love and determination.

"I'm going now." I told him and gently let go of his hand. "Don't grab my hand ok, don't grab any part of me even if you frighten for me, I'm ok, trust me." he nodded though confused. He wasn't for long though as my body started to fade.

"_Querida_!" he said panicking.

"I'm ok, it's cool. This is something Mediator's can do. See ya soon." I grinned at him and then everything went black. The last thing I saw was Jesse's triumphant smile before he too collapsed from that Bitch's spell. The last thing I heard was that Bitch's scream of frustration.

The first thing I saw when I woke up in hospital (_again_) was him and I felt my love for him smoulder every other emotion I had previously been feeling.

I smiled up at him and saw him smile back even though I could still see the tracers of fear in his eyes.

"I love you," I whispered to him, feeling for his hand, which he gave and squeezed my gently in return. "I'm-we're safe and we love you." and then I fell asleep again. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I was going to have to do so much explaining and work when I woke up, but right now I just wanted to sleep, hoping that sleep would help the jigsaw puzzle pieces fit together nicely.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Told you it was a longish chapter. Hope you liked and I hope this answered some of your questions and was anyone expecting anything like that to happen? I wasn't and I'm the Author... I love it when that happens! Your fingers just run away with you and you actually come up with a good idea... Well I thought it was good... Review and let me now.

Some parts, as you can well understand were fun to write while other's were a pain and hard too. The most fun bit out this chapter to write was the part with the Witch (who is she? Not telling, but any theories, if your right I'll meantion you in the chapter when all is revealed), Suze and Jesse, this part was fun and hard at the same time, cause i'm dealing with a furious Suze, a slightly nuts Witch and a really confused Jesse. I felt a little sorry for Jesse in this chapter, ghost Jesse, i mean.  
Cause in this chapter he finds out Suze is pregnant and spends most of the time he knows that he can't be the father cause he's a ghost and so on and so forth, than its hint that he could be, that he could come back to life but he's still not sure and then the whole bomb shell drops on him only to have him forget though i added the part where Suze wonders if Jesse remembers this and that what gives him determination to come back to life at the end of the last book (if that's a spoiler to you what are you doing reading this fic, cause its packed with spoilers!)  
It was just a little idea, that Jesse while connecting back to his body might have remember some hope of being with Suze and having a normal life and so on. Anyway, I love Jesse, he always amuses me and makes me laugh.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed enough to review and that you'll give me any theories you may have, or whether you want the baby to be a boy or girl and names for him or her and so on.  
Thanks for reading, see you again soon!


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:** Hi again! Sorry I haven't updated in awhie since my last update, I haven't been able to get near a computer that connects to the internet while I've been on holidays (still on holidays, doing this in the local library.)  
Anyway, here's chapter 7, I hope you like and will review, thank again to all those people who have been reviewing, even though I'm having fun just writing this whenever, your reviews make it more worthwhile. Thanks  
Since I didn't get to say this before I left, I'll say it now even though I'm days late, Merry Christmas.  
And I wish you all a Happy New Year when it comes around.  
Enjoy.

**

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Chapter 7**

"So remind me again, why am I one of Carmen's bride's maids?" I asked Jesse as I glared at my reflection in mirror hanging on the inside of my closet door.

I felt so stupid wearing this, but at least it wasn't pink. No, it was a rather nice blue colour and I guess it had a nice simple design but I still felt stupid, mainly because I felt like I was a walking watermelon, with my stomach really screaming out that I was pregnant.

"You look beautiful," Jesse mumbled as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into his chest.

"But I still don't know why she wants me to be a bride's maid." I complain. I really didn't want to dwell on the thought of the long, sweeping bride's maid gown that I was trying on at that moment, because I had still been in hospital when the dressing fitting had been on so when I first tried on the dress, shock horror it was too small for me around the middle… Stupid Kid! Love you, Baby.

So the dress had had to be taken away to be altered to fit, but it had only arrived today, with the wedding only being four days away… great timing, huh.

"I'm a groom's men." Jesse pointed out. But the problem was he didn't mind the idea. He had actually felt honoured that Sleepy had asked him. But they knew each other for five years and I explain that to him.

"Carmen has only known me for a couple of weeks." I argued.

"And what a couple of weeks they've been." Jesse mumbled. I smiled slightly.

"It hasn't been all bad."

"Of course not, you landing yourself into hospital twice in a matter of three weeks is perfectly normal." Jesse snorted. I hit his arm, but not hard.

"I meant the baby, stupid." I growled at him. _The baby…_

I looked back at the mirror at my swollen stomach. It was amazing how big it had gotten in so few weeks when I had still be reasonably flat when I first found out about the little kid.

"_Because __its powerful. Probably one of the most powerful Mediator to ever walk the Earth. I mean, you'd expect that with both parents being Mediators and the father being a resurrected ghost,"_

"_Powerful enough to hid itself for five months from me and from its parents, filling it__s mother's head with doubt about the whole thing,"_

"_Clever baby!" _

"_It wanted to protect its Mommy and itself from me and my lovely hounds, but I was so sure that it was you, it had to be you Susannah and that falling van proved it."_

"_To save you, your baby took you a few seconds into the future, taking you out of immediate danger of being crushed by the van to just being slightly bruised. As I said before your baby is clever, defiantly takes after it father of cause. It wasn't much power used but it was enough to alert me and my Hell Hounds and after going to Hospital and being check over the silly Doctors finding the baby within you it was only further proof that your baby is the one."_

I pulled a face at the memory. My kid wasn't powerful, it was just my kid.

I was still in serious denial from all the information that I had received or not received from the witch.

"Stupid witch." I grumbled.

"_Querida_…"

"You weren't there Jesse… wait a minute, scratch that, you were there, you just don't remember. So were Paul and Father Dom…" my voice trailed off as another bit part of what the witch had said suddenly came to me.

_While I erase these _**twos**_ memories._

Two? There had been three. She had erased Paul's memories of the event and Jesse's but what about Father Dominic's?

"I'm going to kill him." I whispered.

"Eh? _Querida_, no killing," Jesse paused for a moment, "who are you planning to kill?"

"Father Dominic." I growled threw gritted teeth. Jesse stared at me, surprised for a moment.

"Why?"

"Because he didn't get his memory erased; only you and Paul did. So he knows a lot about this."

"How?"

"'Cause I told him."

"Oh and that's not messing with history." Jesse sighed as he let go of my waist so that I could change out of the stupid dress.

"Ah, honey, you were born in 1830, got killed in 1850 and are now _living_ quite happily _alive_ in 2005. That's messing with the history of 150 years; this situation is only messing with five years, there is a difference, so quit complaining." Jesse just rolled his eyes before adverting them to the window to give me some privacy as I changed.

I couldn't see the point in the exercise, he had already seen all of me, plus he was one who had gotten me pregnant, but it was all his stupid morals.

"Ok, lets go." I stomped for the door but Jesse stopped me.

"_Querida_, think, breath. Going to the Father and yelling at him for a couple of hours isn't going to help solve anything. Anyway he just got back from his trip visiting a friend in Florida."

"I know, but it'll help me feel better." I pouted.

"_Querida_." He wrapped his arms around me.

"He knew about the Hell Hounds but he didn't say anything about it, now or back then to us. He didn't mention meeting me to younger me. And he didn't mention it now either. Why is he hiding all this information from us?" I whispered into his chest.

"He probably has his reasons, he probably wants to try and keep you save."

"By keeping important information from me?" I asked. He sighed and kissed my forehead.

"We'll go talk to him, but I want you to be calm about it, at least until we hear his reasons for his secrecy.

* * *

"Father Dominic! Oi, Father Dominic open up!" I was hammering on his front door of his little house on the other side of the school beside the empty Sister's dormitories.

The door opened slowly, revealing a tired, worried looking Father Dom.

I felt a pang pity towards him; it was so obvious that he was the most worried out of all of us about the Hell Hounds.

"Susannah? Jesse? What brings you here?" he asked us softly.

"Um, just came to visit." Now that he was actually standing right in front of me, my anger towards him was subsiding and logic was coming back to me. He must have had a good reason for not telling me. What the reason was, I didn't know.

He looked a little confused by this but open his door wide for us to enter anyway.

"Um, Father D, you know how I ended up in hospital last week?" I asked him as soon as we had sat down in his lounge room in big comfy chairs. He gave a nod.

"When I was away in Florida? Yes, what about it."

"Um, the reason that I landed myself in hospital was because of the Witch." I watched the colour drain from his face and noticed his hand fidgeting for a pack of smokes that weren't present.

"Susannah!" He looked frantic. Jesse looked at me and I waved my hands wildly at the Father to calm down.

"Father, I'm fine! She didn't do anything to me."

"But why did you end up in hospital," he paused for a moment, "did you say 'she'?" he asked.

I nodded and stared hard at him and he stared right back at me and then realisation dawn upon him.

"Oh Susannah." He sighed and buried his face in his wrinkled hands. I had never notice just how old and wrinkled they looked.

"Father, why didn't you ever tell me that you knew that this was going to happen?" I asked him softly. I wasn't angry at him anymore but I was still curious to hear his reasons.

"Susannah, how would you, as a sixteen year old girl, have reacted if I told you that I had just met a twenty-one year old version of yourself, who happen to be pregnant and being chased by a pack of Hell Hounds and a Witch?" he looked at me with raised eyebrows.

I was stumped.

He had a point; I wouldn't have reacted very well to this information, any of this information, especially the part with me being pregnant.

"Right." I mumbled in agreement. "But what about Jesse, you could have told him." Now I had both men looking at me as if I was nuts.

"_Querida_, I was a ghost." Jesse pointed out and Father Dom nodded in agreement.

"So?"

Father Dom rubbed his face.

"Telling Jesse all that I knew of that event would involve my telling him that he was the father of your unborn child, which at that point of time was completely impossible."

"So, you did hear that part," I said amused, "bet that shocked your system." I smirked at him and he smiled bemused back.

"Yes it did actually, almost thought my hearing had finally given out on me, but then Paul reacted to the news as did Jesse and then it all seemed logical." Jesse and I both stared at him blankly. Father D just shook his white head in amusement.

I couldn't figure out what he found so amusing so I gave up and proceeded with interrogating him, which had been the original plan, but now it was like we were just having a normal conversation. About witches… and time travel… yeah, the normal.

"But why didn't you tell us now, a few weeks back?" I demanded. Father Dom bit his lip and stared at me sadly.

"Can't you guess?" he asked softly. I frown at him and shook my head. He sighed.

"I was afraid that if you knew about this Witch and the fact that she seems to want you baby, you might have done something drastic and foolish if you were told the information second hand." Father Dom explained gently. I nodded but I felt Jesse stiffen beside me. I looked up at him confused.

"Are you saying that she, this witch, is doing all this to get the baby?" He whispered his face pale and his dark eyes raging with a fire I had never seen burning there before.

"Well, I'm not sure." Father Dom said, his eyes widen in shock at the fury of Jesse's expression.

"Jesse," I rubbed his arm gently, trying to sooth him and calm him down, "Jesse, I told you all this." His breath was ragged as fury continued to build in him.

"Why, why does she want it?" he demanded, suddenly standing up, ripping his arm from my grasp.

"Because apparently the baby is going to be a powerful mediator, already is." I whispered staring at his arm. I hadn't told him this part since my mind was still reeling from the information.

"What?" he voice was soft and dangerous. I hadn't heard him use that tone since he was a ghost and Paul had been a danger to us. I bit my lip, fighting back the hormonal tears at the fact he was now using that tone with me.

"She said that because the baby had two mediator parents, the father being a resurrected ghost that it would be powerful and that the baby was already powerful, that it saved me from being crushed by that van by taking us a few seconds in the future." I whispered, lifting my head to stare up at his face. Jesse wasn't looking at me or Father Dom, he was staring at the wall over Father Dom's head, staring at it hard as if willing it to break before him to help him release some of the rage within him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded suddenly turning back to stare down at me, his face dark.

"Because I was scared," I snapped at him jumping to my feet, "because I still am scared," I repeated, emphasising my point.

"I was scared that if I said what she said out loud that it might be true, that my kid is going to have to suffer more than I did from this curse. I thought if I kept it quiet, to myself then maybe we could still raise this kid as if it was normal, not as some super-Mediator like that bitch made it sound like it was going to be."

And with that, I couldn't take it anymore, I had admitted my fears, something I hated doing, so I did the only thing that'd make me feel better about the whole situation.

I left.

I turned on my heels and stalked out of the lounge room, out of Father Dom's house without slamming the door behind me, I didn't want to seem childish, though I felt childish by walking away and not dealing with the problems like an adult, but at that moment I couldn't, I couldn't be an adult.

I just wanted to be a teenager again.

A teenager who could throw a tantrum and get away with it.

A teenager who could kick butt without having to truly worry about the consequences that came afterwards.

A teenager without a serious boyfriend who was over a century and a half old and carrying his special baby.

Just a teenager, back in New York with one friend, fighting her teachers over stupid things, helping and fighting ghost alike. Just being a teenager, where life seemed so uncomplicated now even with my unique circumstances.

I stomped into the sunset light down towards the beach, feeling the cool summer breeze rustle my hair and send it softly flying around me.

Arriving at the far end of the beach where there was few to no people around, I climbed the rocks there, finding a smooth, flat one to sit on, high enough to over look the beach and across the ocean.

With the smell of the salt water and the feeling of freedom, my anger and sadness began to subside.

I knew now that I should have probably told Jesse everything that I had found out that day but to admit out loud that my baby was going to be powerful with abilities I wouldn't wish upon anyone, just made my heart clench.

The baby wiggled inside of me, unhappy about my mood and stressed because of my fight with Jesse, if it was a fight… it felt like one, the way he looked at me. I shuddered.

The idea of just catching the next bus out of here and just hiding and running and keeping my baby safe came to mind, but I pushed it away, I couldn't do that! That really was a teenage thing to do. I was an adult whether I liked it or not.

An adult with an unborn baby to think about. A baby who'd need its father to help it deal with its crazy, stubborn mother. The father, who was climbing up the rocks to join me now!

I didn't look at Jesse when he walked across the smooth rock to stand beside me, I just wrapped my arms more tightly around my knees, staring purposefully out at the ocean which had turn a dark purple colour as the sun went further down into its depths.

"_Querida_," he voice was still soft but his tone was now gentle and loving. My heart skipped a beat at the sound of it and his name for me, which I had feared I would never hear again except in memories.

"_Querida_," he said again as he sat down beside me, pulling me into his chest where I instantly curled myself against.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into hair, running his fingers threw its length.

"Its ok," I whispered into his chest, "it's my fault really, I should have just told you the whole story."

"I would have still acted the same." He admitted softly. I pulled away from him, startled.

"What?"

"I just," he looked away towards the darkening sky and ocean, "the idea that this woman wants our baby just because it possesses great power just makes me angry."

"And we don't even know why she wants it." I sighed heavily.

"I don't really care; she's not coming anywhere near you or the baby again, not if I can help it." Jesse growled angrily. I stared up at him.

His mood was making me nervous and a little frighten. I had never seen him like this, not even with Paul. The far off look, the dangerous glint of burning fire in his eyes freaked me out.

"Jesse, why are you really mad?" he stared at me, confused.

"Tell me why you're really angry." I persisted.

"Because I knew all this too, I was there too, but that woman made me forget and I hate that. I could have known and protected you and the baby earlier if I had been able to fight harder."

"Jesse you're beating yourself up because a Witch messed with your memory." I suddenly burst out laughing. "Jesse, that's ridicules. If she hadn't mess with your memory what would you have done with the knowledge that we have now? You would have brooded over it! You'd probably have spent all your time thinking up ways to stop her and miss your chances at coming back to life. And then this little one wouldn't have happen at all." That thought shut up my laughter almost immediately and I stared down at my round belly.

"What are we going to do?" I asked him softly.

"I don't know _querida_, I just don't know." He replied softly.

"Can we at least try and raise it like it is a normal child?" I asked. He nodded.

"Good cause that was how I was planing us to raise it." I said. He sniggered and hugged me close.

"You never get discourage do you?" he laughed, "someone tries to knock you down but you find another way to get up and around them."

"Yup."

We sat there for awhile, just in our own thoughts watching the stars come out and the full moon glowing.

"Jesse?" I asked suddenly.

"Hmm?" he was playing with my hair, braiding it and upbraiding it, a weird little hobby he had picked up when he had come back to life.

"Do you think the Baby is a he or she?" I asked him suddenly.

"Girl." He said without giving himself time to really think about it. I turn slightly to look up at his face. He was dead serious with his claim.

"Girl? Not a boy?"

"My family was made up of mostly girls." He shrugged.

"Jesse, that has nothing to do with it," I sniggered, "you know that."

"I know, but I still think its going to be a girl."

"Fine," I laughed, before smiling up at him evilly, "but for argument sake I'm going to say it is going to be a boy."

He sighed before getting to his feet. He held out a hand for me to grasp and pulled me to my feet.

"You just have to be difficult, don't you." He chuckled. I nodded cheerfully, letting him guide me down the rocks to the beach

"Yup! That's me!" I laughed, doing an odd little twirl on the sandy beach. Jesse snorted with laughter.

"I don't know whether to be amused or worried at the fact that you're dancing." He chuckled, before grabbing my hands and we both started doing this odd little jig on the beach.

"You are so weird." He chuckled and I smirked up at him as he span me around before pulling me into his chest and we started swaying again.

"I'm Weird? That's rich coming from you," I giggled before continuing on my rant, "and so what if I'm weird. Saying I'm weird is another way of saying I'm unique."

He sniggered.

"Yes, you are very unique and special."

"YAY, I'm special." I said in a high, squeaky voice and clapped my hands together rather childishly, which was the end for Jesse. He couldn't stop laughing for almost ten full minutes.

"I feel so sorry for our child." He sniggered when he finally managed to stop.

"At least it'll have you to keep it sane."

"Somehow I think it'll be able to keep itself sane." Jesse sighed heavily.

"It'll probably be driving us insane. Isn't that what kids are suppose to do? Drive their parents up the walls?" I said lightly, snuggling close to him as he put an arm around my shoulders. Jesse looked down at me puzzled, though it was quite hard to see his expression because it had grown quite dark.

"Are they?"

I slapped my forehead lightly, "trust me to fall for a guy so behind the times." I sighed teasingly.

"I just don't understand why kids would want to drive their parents up the walls?"

"Jesse, different times, kids are way more rebellious in this century." I explained wisely. Jesse was cringing.

"And here I was thinking that you and few others were just abnormalities in the human species." Jesse groaned.

"I am! I see dead people, remember." He smirked at that, before cringing again.

"Only God knows how I'm going to survive if the baby turns out to be anything like you." I gave a swift kick in the shin for that. He didn't even have the grace to pretend to be in pain. My kicks and punches were so lame while I was pregnant!

"We should probably head back, the family might be worried about us." I sighed as we trudged up the path leading off the beach.

"Probably," Jesse agreed, "your mother is most likely going to scold you for trying on your dress and not showing everyone how it looks."

I cringed.

"That means I'll have to put it on again!" I wailed, "On second thoughts let's stay here for a bit longer."

"No, no, no, we can't keep your mother waiting." He laughed pulling me in the direction of the school student car park where our rent car was parked.

"You're cruel! You just want to see me suffer!" I howled.

"Yeah that too, but I want to see you in that dress again. It's so hard to get you a normal everyday dress let alone a special occasion one." He grinned at me and I rolled my eyes, before watching the last ray of sun fall into the ocean.

"There goes the sun, da da da da da." I muttered under my breath hoping Jesse hadn't heard me, but of cause he had but…

"There goes the sun." he agreed, his singing voice much better than mine. I smiled up at him and he hugged me tightly and kissed my mouth softly.

A guy who can kiss like this just can't be real…oh wait, he is! And he's mine! Hehehe!

"And it's alright"

* * *

**Author's Note:** This was more of a filler chapter than anything else, just gaving up everyone's emotions about how they feel about the Baby and its powers and about the Witch.  
Question, Boy or Girl for the baby sexs and i was going to ask for suggestion for names, but i have atleast on name for either but if you have any suggestions please tell them anyway.  
Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time with Chapter 8.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** Hey, here's chapter 8.  
This chapter is sort of quick pace, a lot of stuff happens in it.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 8**

"Good evening."

"It's annoying and rather sad how News presenters always say that and then proceed to tell us how it isn't." Adam said as we flicked threw channels and just so happen to stumble across Mom's News Report.

"It's their job, Adam." CeeCee sighed, rolling her eyes at me as she swatted Adam over the head for he sat leaning against the couch she was lying on.

Adam, CeeCee, Jesse and I were all lounging in my lounge room watching whatever seemed relatively interesting on the telly.

We were all bored, dressed up for the rehearsal dinner that was being held at seven thirty at the five star, blah, blah, blah Cliffside Hotel and it was five o'clock, but we had been strictly told by Mom that she want us all ready to go when she came to get us. Apparently a lot of people were coming to the dinner and Mom wanted there to be enough car spots for all those people so she was making all close friends and family car pool.

Lucky us, we got Mom, whose been going a little beresk these last couple of days, as if it was one of her wedding all over again and not Carmen's and Jake's.

"Adam that's my mom your insulting." I added.

"No, I'm insulting all News presenters."

I rolled my eyes, "same thing."

"Where's Paul?" CeeCee asked suddenly, looking around the room as if she suddenly expected him to appear.

"He's…. Actually I don't know where he is… and why should I?" I looked at Jesse, demanding an answer from him "Wait a minute," I paused thinking before the obvious conclusion jumped out at.

"He was invited?!" I yelped. I got several exasperated sighs for my being oblivious to this fact.

"I didn't know! I wasn't told!" I snapped, jumping off the couch to my feet.

I counted my lucky stars that I wasn't wearing heels, because my head started spinning in overdrive at the suddenness of my movements. I swayed dangerously, almost falling but I was caught by Jesse and Adam before I toppled.

"Wow, you have worse dizzy spells than Cee." Adam said brightly, but his eyes showed me how worried he was about me, which I found rather touching. CeeCee was also staring at me in concern.

"I'm fine, really I am." I said smiling as brightly as I could, as I fought down the nausea. The baby was unhappy about something, I realised startled as I felt spurts of panic coming from my belly.

"You don't look fine to me." CeeCee argued. I pulled a face at her and sighed.

"Jesse, I'm begging you for our sakes and for the sakes of the world. Don't get her pregnant again, not for another twenty years at least." Adam begged.

"Same goes for you and Cee." I growled darkly.

"OI!"

"Sorry." I said meekly, or tried to sound as I heard movement upstairs.

Movement, that shouldn't be there, since there was no one else in the house except us and we where all down stairs along with the dog and the evil cat.

"_Querida?_" Jesse asked as I moved away from him. I was startled that he hadn't heard the movement too, but I guess, since I was carrying the baby my senses had hyped up far beyond what was normal for humans.

Max and Spike suddenly growled in unison and that's when I really started to freak out. Max and Spike don't like each other! End of story, their cat and dog, they were never destined to be friends! I mean, the stupid mutt is afraid of the evil cat… then again. I'd be too and the evil thing had hated me, well that was the case until recently when the evil thing decided to take a liking to me all of a sudden. It's the baby, I swear.

But anyway, their hatred for each was now put to the sidelines as they both stood side by side, growling and hissing, fur on ends, going completely mental both glaring at the stairs leading upstairs, ready to fend of a common enemy.

I gulped.

"What's with them?" Adam asked, puzzled but with enough sense to make sure Cee was off the couch and standing behind him. I did mention that he can be very protective when he wanted to be or he feels he needs to be.

"I don't know." Jesse said calmly.

"You're too calm." I hissed at him, feeling my body beginning to panic.

I was having a panic attack, like the one I had had when I went into the past a couple of weeks ago, but this one was worse somehow, way worse.

"Someone needs to be calm." He responded just as calmly.

I open my mouth to snap back a smartass comment but was stopped by a growl.

"Oh god, not you." I moaned.

It was Scarface as I had dubbed him since he had scars on his face and chest, which I had somehow inflicted, or more likely the Baby, threw me, had inflicted.

"That's a weird looking dog." Adam said.

"We need to go." Jesse said, taking hold of my arm and pulling me slowly towards the front door, while ushering to the other two to go behind us and out the door first as the Hell Hound had no interest in them.

"_Querida_, calm down, breath." Jesse whispered into my ear.

"Being too calm in a situation such as this proves that you haven't fully grasped the whole issue with this situation." I hissed at him.

"No, _querida_," his face was going pale, "your fading."

"WHAT!" I shrieked and looked at my body. It was fading in and out of existence… How the heck was that happening… Oh right the baby!

"Sweetie, I love you, but STOP MAKING MOMMY DISAPPEAR OR WE'LL HAVE REAL ISSUES WHEN YOU'RE BORN!"

"Susannah, yelling at the baby isn't going to help."

"No, but it makes me feel better, since we still don't know how to fight this thing."

"Actually we do!"

"PAUL!"

"To the rescue, like always." Paul said brightly as he ran in with… a water gun and started springing the Hell Hound. Scarface howled in fury before bolting back upstairs and disappearing.

"You fought it off with a water gun," I gawked at him.

"Yup, don't you love me?!"

"Hows the weather on planet you wish?" I smiled sweetly as I kicked him, hard, in the shin. He smiled just as sweetly back, trying to fight down the pain that I had inflicted upon his shin. Jesse just rolled his eyes at us, muttering some along the lines of, "kids these days."

"Your dating one of those kids, amigo." I growled at him.

"Yeah, and she happens to pregnant with your kid too." Paul threw in for the hell of it, which earned him another kick from me.

Jesse sighed, not bothering with responding, probably figuring it wasn't worth his while when he was in the presences of two smartasses and just went on looking around the house for any signs of the Hell Hound still hiding there before returning, eyes fixed upon the water gun.

"What's in that?" he asked curious. I was curious too but I had been too busy fighting with Paul about the size of my stomach and about what sex the baby was and honestly the way Paul went on he sounded like he was the father kept in the dark. He was rather pissed off about not being told until like three days before hand that I was pregnant and I had only told him because he had seen my stomach and seemed to have lost all ability to speak.

"Garlic, mistletoe and holy water." Paul recited in a bored tone, which he only had after having to suffer hours of his grandfather's lectures. "The myths do have some truth to them, so don't diss them." He added, shrugging.

"We won't." Jesse and I solemnly swore.

"So… What just happen?" Adam asked suddenly appearing over Paul's shoulder, his face uncharacteristically suspicious and cool.

"Um…" I said weakly before he shrugged.

"Is it one of you things, Suze?" he asked me gently. I blinked then nodded. Adam rubbed the back of his head with his hand, obviously trying to get his head around my new 'thing'. Then he shrugged again and looked back over his shoulder, probably looking back at CeeCee.

"It's ok, Cee, it just one of Suze's things."

I heard a soft "oh" of understanding then we all fell into an awkward silence before CeeCee asked

"So that thing that the dog and monster cat were growling at was a Hell Hound? Like one of the guardian's of hell?" Cee asked softly, looking still a little frighten but her fascination and curious of her character out weighed her fear.

I nodded and without much coaxing I was telling her and Adam the full story, with Jesse and Paul helping me every so often to fill in details that I had missed or didn't know.

CeeCee followed the plot a lot better than Adam, but she knew about my oddness for a lot longer than Adam. And well, she was CeeCee, she didn't always believe in this kind of stuff but if she had proof, well, her reporter brain clicked over and she understood everything and filled in the parts we left out herself.

Adam only became fully aware of my seeing of ghosts when his grandmother passed away mid year twelve and her ghost came back to me complaining about Adam breaking her favourite tea set accidentally a week before her death and still hadn't brought her a new one.

Anyway, she caused a few little problems for Adam, like spilling drinks on his head and making his homework disappear. You know annoying little things that annoyed you but did no real harm to anyone. She kept this up until Jesse and I told him to buy a nice, new tea set and leave it on her little coffee table in her lounge room.

It was in these days Adam found out I was a Mediator and like Cee, took the news reasonably well. His words after we finished explaining everything to him were: "you know now all your weird, psycho behaviour makes sense. I knew there had to be more to it than you being some crazy New Yorker."

And like before with finding out the reason behind all my madness, the two of them took all this information into their strides.

"Do you ever have a normal day? Week? Year?" Adam asked once I had finished my story. We were all sitting on the front porch, none of us quite ready to go back inside where it still had the creepy feeling of undead and supernatural about it.

"Yeah once," I replied casually, "it was a Friday thirteenth."

CeeCee and Paul both sniggered while Adam full out laughed and Jesse just rolled his eyes at me.

"But it explains why you've been so stressed lately." CeeCee mused.

"Oh and just finding out she's pregnant doesn't add to her stress levels too?" Paul questioned her. CeeCee rolled her eyes at him.

"That too." She agreed reluctantly. Cee hates having things she said pointed out as either wrong or not hundred percent right, a fault that Paul has at times enjoyed exploiting over the years.

The thing is, these two are very alike with their intelligence levels, and its not funny, debating back at school was extremely amusing though also rather dangerous when their tempers start to flair. But as much as they've both butted heads, they have been known to work together effectively; they just fought over every single little thing when we did group work.

"Stress," Adam started to recited, trying to break the annoyed tension between Cee and Paul, "a condition brought on by over-riding the bodies desire to choke the living daylights out of some Jerk who desperately deserves it."

Jesse and I laughed while the other two let out resigned chuckles

"Here's your Mom." CeeCee said getting up slowly up from the step she had been sitting on.

"Ya-huh." I nodded, following her example of slowness in rising.

"Hi Everyone," Mom greeted us.

You could clearly see she was tired and that the only thing she wanted to do was to crawl into bed and sleep till the next decade but was determine to keep going no matter what. She too was already dressed for the dinner. She looked us up and down expectantly, her face going from impressed, Jesse was the best looking out of all of us, to disapproving; CeeCee's hair had caused us a bit of trouble that afternoon. We couldn't decided what we wanted to do with it so we did a bit of everything and the end result was all of it being pulled back into a messy sort of bun. Adam was next to get the disapproving eye because as always he looked a bit of a goof, a good looking one, but a goof none the less, whatever he seems to wear, he was always a goof. And lastly, Paul.

Well truthfully, Paul looked fine except that he was still holding his water gun, which he quickly hid behind his back when he understood that _it_ was the reason he was getting my mother's hard glare.

"Paul, you have your car with you?" Mom asked him, looking at him far more kindly now that the water gun was out of sight. Paul nodded, not sure what he was about to get himself roped into.

"You wouldn't mind carpooling Adam and CeeCee would you? My car is a little jam backed since Brad just rang up to tell me his car broke down and that he and David have no way to get to the Cliffside Hotel's restaurant." Mom sighed. Ok, now I understood why she looked so tired and stressed. Stress ha! Maybe she wanted to strangle someone, namely Dopey, who is a jerk who desperately deserves it. I grinned at the thought.

"I don't want to know what you're thinking." Paul whispered to me, his tone suggestive. I kicked him, hard, in the shin.

Mom was too stressed to scold me or to even shot me a warning look. Wow, she really must have been stressed to not be able to muster up a quick warning look at me.

Jesse made up for her though. He rolled his eyes at us, but the beauty of it was that it was Paul he glared at, not me.

I was really thrilled about this little detail until we both got into the back of the Mustang and that was where Jesse gave me a disapproving look, but not for actually kicking Paul as such. He had no problem with my kicking Paul; he was just worried about the strain of kicking Paul had on my body and on the baby.

"The baby is fine. Actually it enjoyed my kicking Paul, must get that from its Dad." I whispered back at him. He rolled his eyes but his lips turn ever so slightly upwards.

"Oooh, I can't believe we're late!" Mom moaned from the front. Jesse and I looked at each before looking at the clock.

"Mom, it's only ten passed six, we're fine." I said.

"No, I said we'd be there early to help set up and all those sorts of things." Mom panic as we drove down our hill a little faster than what was legal.

The rest of the drive to wherever Dopey and Dave were was in silence, Mom pushing the legal speed limit as far as she dared.

When she pulled up in front of the car serves station, she was close to tears as neither Dave nor Dopey were dressed in their finery.

"Somebody's in trouble." I whispered to Dopey, not caring that Mom was furious with him for not only breaking his car so close to the wedding but for not being ready to go when she came to pick him and Dave up. Dave, I did feel sorry for.

Dave hates being in Mom's bad books, even now in the time of his life were being close to your mother, step mother, was looked upon as uncool.

"They still have time to change," I buttered in, to save Doc, "at the hotel, they can change there in the bathrooms."

For some absurd reason no one had thought up this solution. Jesse had, I think, probably seconds before I had burst out with the idea, stealing his lime light which he never really liked shining in. But it would have been all his if he had spoken up sooner because my mother and my two step brothers were looking at me like I was some kind of genius.

"Alright, you heard your sister, change at the hotel." Mom barked with her cool news presenter voice. "All of you in the car."

And we were on the road again and at the hotel by six-thirty.

"Damn." Mom was whispering as we walked up the front marble steps of the hotel.

"Suze," she yelled once she had reached the top and I was still close to the bottom.

Did I mention that being pregnant not only makes you throw up at all hours of the day, go up a couple of dress sizes, it also makes you really, really slow.

"Yeah? What?" I couldn't be bother to be polite not with Dopey making jeering remarks at me out of the corner of his mouth as he walked a few steps ahead of Jesse and me.

"I don't want you to do anything stressful or anything…"

"Yeah, Mom, I got it." I complained picking up speed to hit Dopey with my shoulder bag.

"I think she was referring to you not to doing something things like _that_!" Jesse commented lightly as he took the bag from me. Dopey looked momentarily pleased before Jesse hit him over the head with the bag a few times.

"Leave her alone." Jesse told to him very quietly. Dopey nodded and shot up the stairs, passed a laughing David and my confused mother who had missed everything because she had been hunting for Andy.

Jesse looked down at me and handed back my shoulder bag and continue to help me up the stairs.

Jesse and Dopey, have never ever gotten along, even when Jesse was a ghost, he never really liked Dopey, finding him loud, rude and he never like his and my methods of sorting out our problems with each other.

But he learnt, after he came back to life that Dopey really did earn the torture that he had seen me put him threw. Basically they just really don't like each, Dopey finds Jesse creepy and Jesse finds Dopey a pig.

"Thank you." I whispered to him. He shrugged.

"Someone has to put the idiot in his place while you are unable to do so."

"I can to still put him in his place," I complained, "just not…"

"As affectively as you use to. _Querida_, as soon as the baby is born you can put him in his place as much as you like, but until then can you please let me do the job."

"Fine, but be less verbal." I grumbled. "I want to see him in a fight that he will actually _lose_!" Jesse just chuckled and we followed the well dressed penguin waiter to our assigned table, which just happen to be the main table, which was almost completely empty, except for one bored looking couple who I guessed could only be Carmen's parents, from the woman's facial features and the man's hair colour.

They looked up at us once as we approached before returning to their bored stare of the opposite wall.

"Hello." I said as Jesse and I sat down at our assigned seats across the table from the bored couple. The women, Carmen's mother I was guessing looked up from her napkin and stared at me with the expression of disbelief, as if speech was a completely new concept for her. She looked at her partner for help but he continued to stare into space before she looked back at me looking helpless. I now felt bad for speaking to her as it was obviously distressing her greatly.

"Hello." She replied suddenly, smiling at us nervously.

Taking this as a break threw and sizing the moment, which I did, I smiled back.

"I'm Susannah Simon and this here is my boyfriend Jesse de Silva." I introduced myself and before pointing at Jesse as I introduced him. "I'm the step sister to the groom." I added lamely. I probably could have left it out for these two lost their bored and nervous expression at our names. The man looked away from space and for the first time looked Jesse and me in the eye. He had blue eyes as opposed to his partner, wife who had green. He nodded to us pleasantly enough.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both, I am Matthew Brown and this is my wife Sara. Our daughter is the bride." He said with genuine delight, his eyes sparkling with happiness and sadness that I expected all fathers got before their daughter's big day. But score, I was right about who they were.

"Sorry if we were a bit out of the loop. Jet lag, hate it." Matthew was explaining to Jesse, who was nodding in fierce agreement. Jesse's hates flying as much as he hates sailing. He is land man to the bone and nothing soon was going to change that detail about him.

I leant against the table, smiling between the Browns and Jesse.

It takes awhile for Jesse to warm up to people enough to have a full conversations with them, probably because even though he has been around for over a century and a half, his mind at times is still very set in the nineteenth century. But once he finds something in common with another it is extremely hard to shut him up again.

"I'm going to go find CeeCee and the others." I said smiling at them before getting up slowly and leaving them.

I walked out of the ballroom and pattered down the stairs towards that formal entrance.

"Please, someone, please."

An old woman was walking around the entrance looking frantic and upset. I could understand why, she was a ghost. A new one at that.

"Please, I need help." She was saying to everyone and anyone; walking up to several door men, guests and other members of staff.

I waved at her. She stared at me for a moment, before looking behind her making sure I wasn't making the gesture to someone else. Once she was sure no one behind or near her was responding to my increasing wave. She stared at me hopeful and when I nodded to her, her face broke into a bright smile of relief.

"Thank you, thank you." She gasped as she came to my side.

"It's ok," I nodded my head towards a group of chairs at the side of the front foyer.

"So what's up? How come you haven't, you know, moved on?" I asked as we sat down in chairs in the far corner of the room. I picked up an old soup magazine and started to flick threw it.

"Probably because of how I died." The old woman sighed.

"Ok, can I ask how you died?"

"A great dog stole my soul from my body; it'll look like I've had a heart attack. No one is going to know how I died." I stared at her my mouth hanging open in disbelief.

"Um, how do you know all that?" I asked her softly and flicked over another page. She raised an eyebrow at me.

"Well for one, I saw the thing and two you being a mediator and all, need to know what happen to me, so that you can help. And the only way for you to help me is for you to listen to what I know." She replied, she was losing her lost and upset of a new ghost face and gaining one of whom knows more about the other world than I did. Actually she now seemed quite comfortable, no longer upset, just taking everything in rather calmly.

"Good guess," I grumbled, "so why did the Hell Hound come after you?"

"Because I know more about them then their summoner would like." She looked sad and depressed about this. Well, she had that right, the knowledge whatever it was, had cost her, her life.

"What do you know about them and their summoner?" I asked, feeling excited, finally someone who knew something about what was going on.

"That their summoner has made a pact with them to retrieve ghosts and an important child," she eyed my swollen belly.

"Why is she summoning them, revenge?" I asked, ignoring her eyes on my belly.

"Yes, also she's probably wants to be more powerful. The more powerful the soul the more powerful her spells are and her control on the Hell Hounds."

"Ok, so how do you know all this?" she smiled at me and my mind clicked.

"You're a um, witch?" I asked, scratching my head as I looked away from her out the window at the parking lot then at the ocean that glimmered in the distance of sunset light.

"Yes, I am-was." She sighed heavily.

"Do you know who this summoner-witch is?" I asked her. She shook her head sadly.

"No, I never felt such an aura like hers, and if I had I would never forget it. Her aura is both powerful and evil, as a mediator that you are I wouldn't mess with her."

"Great." I sighed heavily. "So how can I stop her?"

"Stop the Hell Hounds, cut off their link to her and you'll cut off her main source of power, she will return to the normal powers of a very clever witch."

"You don't think that she's a powerful witch as well as a clever one?" I asked.

"She can't be too powerful normally for her to resort to this sort of magic." She replied.

"So how do I cut off her link with the Hell Hounds?" I asked. The old lady sighed heavily.

"She is probably summoning and controlling the Hell Hounds with an alter, a black alter, probably with a scrying mirror to pick her victims and to keep track of the Hell Hounds."

"So find these things, destroy them and she no longer a threat…"

"To your baby." The woman finished me.

"Why does she want my baby?" my hands clutched into fist as my arms wrapped themselves in protectively around my bump.

"Not completely sure, probably as another way to access stronger power. I'm not sure."

"Great! Anything else?"

"She knows you; you must protect yourself and be on your guard always from now on."

"Why?" I was confused. Why must I be more on my guard now and how was I supposed to protect myself from a witch.

"I'm sorry, but I feel that I am going now."

"But wait," I yelped ignoring the puzzled looks directed my way, "How do I protect myself from her? How do I even find her?"

"I'm sorry." She sighed, "Please tell my son that I died relatively peaceful and that my body is in my room here."

"Which room and can you tell me your name…"

"Room 235 and my name is Bethany Davidson, I'm a flouriest" and she was gone, just like that.

I slumped back in my chair and sighed heavily.

Ok, that had answered a couple of questions that had been bugging me, like how the… witch had been summoning and controlling the Hell Hounds, but it had also open the door to a whole heap of new ones too.

I sighed heavily again before pushing myself up and off the comfy chair and made my way to the front desk.

"Can I help you?" the blond woman behind it asked me, smiling a cheesy smile at me.

"Um, yeah, I'm looking for a Bethany Davidson in room 235…." The woman quickly interrupted me.

"You are from the dinner party tonight correct? Yes I'll ring her up and tell her you wish to speak to her."

"Ok." That was easy. It's not usually this easy, believe me.

The receptionist waited on her phone for a few moments, before looking puzzled.

"She doesn't seem to be picking up. I will go and send someone to her room right away."

"I'm ok." I said and stood back to wait. I all ready happy to just sit back down and wait, but Mom and CeeCee found me and dragged me back to the Ballroom.

"Ah, wait." I complained before sighing. The staff would find Bethany Davidson's without my help and if I saw a grieving man, well I'd pass on her message.

I didn't get to look for a grieving man, for I was dragged back to my table, Jesse looking at me questioningly, but accepting that I would tell him all later.

The dinner went fairly smoothly, I swear, it was more like a reception then a rehearsal dinner there were so many people present.

When the dancing came on, I didn't do much of it neither did Jesse. Well if I wasn't dancing he wasn't, was he theory and he was sticking to it. I didn't even need to give any of the girls around the evil eye, because Jesse was doing a fantastic job of keeping them away from him just by ignoring them and fussing over me.

When we were relatively alone, I told him about old Bethany Davidson and about her warnings.

Jesse listen quietly, his arms wrapped lightly around my form.

"I guess we'll have to try what she suggested. I mean, we have nothing else that we can use against the witch." Jesse said, the only one, besides Father Dom, who said witch and actually meant that word while saying it.

"Yeah, and maybe we can ask Dr Slaski." I mumbled, leaning against him.

"Hmmm." He was looking off towards the entrance of the ballroom, where a young man, I guess around Jesse's age, stood. A man whom did not belong to the celebration going on around about him, he was too serious, too cold, too, well, sober, I guess to be a guest.

He saw us and immediately walked towards us.

"Oh this can't be good." I whispered as Mr. Grumps continued to walk towards us.

He came to stand in front of us.

"Are you Susannah Simon?" he asked me.

"Eh." I replied intelligently.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ok, see a lot of different stuff happens and I made it a cliff-hanger too... Please don't kill me!  
I will update... again... soon.  
I hope you enjoyed this and will please review.  
Thanks for reading.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** Sorry, Sorry, SORRY."  
I had actually thought I had Uploaded this chapter on here, but well obviously I hadn't and I'm really sorry about that. I've been really busy, Hahaha, and how many author's say that, I wonder. But I seriously was, I had exams at the end of the last term, which study took up a lot of time and then I've been moving house, so I actually have no internet at this present moment in time, I'm using the computer at my Mum's work to update, since I have some fic's I want to add to and a few one-shots I want to post.

Ok, So you finally find out who the mystery man in chapter 8 is in this Chapter, unless you already know because you've looked up this fic on Meg Cabot's Website in her Fanfiction section of her forums. Yeah, I sort upload this chapter on that site and forgot to do the same here, hehehe, oops... Sorry.

**Chapter 9**

"Are you Susannah Simon?" he asked me.

"Eh." I replied intelligently.

"Why do you want to know?" Jesse asked coolly. The man raised an eyebrow at Jesse and they both surveyed each other, sizing each other up.

Jeez why do guys do this?

Ok, so girls do the same thing, but come on, honestly, these two had only just met and they looked ready to beat the crap out of each.

"And you're Jesse, or correction Hector de Silva."

We blinked at him, our mouths hanging open in disbelief.

Jesse recovered first, naturally, but grew very still; his arms around me growing tighter.

"Look," the man said obviously noticing Jesse's reaction, "I don't really care at the moment whether you were born last year or over a century and a half ago. I am interested; don't get me wrong. I am really interested in knowing how exactly you managed such a feat that I know a certain coven of witches have been trying to pull for years. But I'm not here about that or about the favours you had to pull to make it seem like you were born in the in the early eighties or whenever."

"So what are you here about?" I asked him quietly, gesturing to a seat beside me. He sat down quickly and moved his brief case around so that it was seated on his lap. Oh my god the guy was acting like James Bond for goodness sake.

"You're a mediator are you not?" he asked me, so calmly that you'd think we were discussing the weather.

"Eh…" I said again with great intelligence.

"How do you know about them?" Jesse asked coolly.

"My younger sister was one." He shrugged his shoulders calmly. I felt Jesse flinch behind but I didn't understand why.

I frown at the man in front of me, judging his face. It was still cool and remote but there was now a great sadness in his eyes. I then understood the past tense he had used.

_Was_…

"Are you?" I started but he cut me off with a shake of his head.

"Apparently this ability does not always go sibling to sibling. Sometimes it jumps over the oldest and goes on to the next." He shrugged nonchalantly, but it was clear that this had at one point or other been an issue for him, whether he had been jealous of the fact that his younger sister had inherited the gift and he hadn't or he had not liked his sister suffering from the burden of seeing the dead.

Either one I could see being logical for him, but which I wasn't sure. I was surprised at myself to find that I was leaning towards the latter

"So what's your deal?" I asked, genially interested in him now.

He opened his brief case and held out a folder to me.

"My mother said that you two would be good people to show these too."

"And your mother is?" Jesse asked as he watched me begin opening the folder.

"Bethany Davidson. I am Tony Davidson" Jesse and I both looked up at him. He nodded.

"But she was our florist." I hissed.

"Who was found dead because of a heart attack this evening." He nodded.

"I'm sorry." I whispered. He shrugged. He had a job to do, so obviously, he wasn't about to let his grief come in between him and achieving it. I admired him for this but I also disliked him for it too. He shrugged again.

"That's why I came and find you, you see my Mother was a witch," he watched our reactions carefully as he said that.

Jesse and I both just nodded in understanding before he continued on, "she was a witch of some power, she was…" he seemed to be trying to find the right word that's we'd understand, "she could predict the future as well as see what was happening in the present and what has happen in the past." He explained.

"Useful." Was all Jesse could think to say to this information.

Me? I was pretty much too engrossed with the idea of how brilliant seeing future lottery numbers would be.

"Yes it is-was," Tony agreed quietly. He gave himself a quick shake and continued, "anyway, My mother saw that you, Susannah were going to have some trouble with Hell Hounds and that a clever, but young witch had summon them to collect souls and so on and so forth." He looked rather bored about the whole issue really.

"You're only doing this cause your Mom asked you to, right?" I guessed

"Yes and no. Yes, my mother did ask me, but I only really agreed to do this is because I was hoping you could help me with some of my more unusual cases, ones that are similar to this one."

"Eh, ok, but I don't really do this sort of thing. Just so you know I'm not like Allison Dubios or anything. I'm not at all like her. I only see the dead, nothing else fancy." Jesse gave a quiet snort behind me and Tony didn't look convinced.

"I realised that, but I was wondering whether or not you could look at these photo's and read these reports and see them in a different light anyway, I don't know, maybe you can see things that we've missed."

"I _so_ should get my own TV series for this or maybe some novels, six books you know, just six good books about my life as a mediator. My moving to here would be a great start" I grumbled under my breath.

"Look, I don't know. Normally ghost comes to me or I stubble across them. I don't usually do this sort of thing." I stared at the folder in my lap.

"My mother said she saw you helping me on some cases." Tony said.

"Did she see me having a baby too?" I asked. He frowned.

"Not until recently, maybe a few weeks back. She was all excited about it too." He rolled his eyes.

"Look, there's no pressure into helping me, but I would deeply appreciate your help with these things."

"Have you seen them?"

"Nothing that would stand up in court," he laughed, "not like I can actually take them to court or the person who summon them either. I'd look like the loony then." He sighed.

"Why what's going on?"

"First it was only ghosts that these Hell Hounds were taking, up until recently, actually the day after my mother had her first premonition about your baby, a witch from her coven died. Now to police it looks a little odd, but still a normal death, the woman died of a heart attack. The odd thing is she didn't have any heart trouble before hand and she was only in her early thirties. But…" he paused.

"More witches started dying of heart attacks?" I guessed, feeling ill. He nodded.

"Witches of all ages, all from that same coven, all dying of hearts. Now to most it looks like theses girls had been on some nasty, dangerous stuff, but for those who have had a mother for a witch, a father who was a drunk and a sister who saw dead people it's not hard to guess that something supernatural going on."

"At first I thought it was one of those really angry ghosts, Mom disagreed with me, saying that it was a Hell Hound. Now Hell Hounds are really hard to get rid of if your not death seer's, but that's what her coven was trying to do though, to get rid of them before they started attack innocents, but of course they got knocked off the block."

"Nombre De Dios, he's as bad as you." Jesse grumbled in my ear.

"Anyway, she saw you, said you could help us," my eyebrows shot upwards, "and that you would help me with some of my other future cases." He eyed my stomach thoughtfully, "after you have had your kid of course."

"We'll think about." I said slowly. He looked relieved.

"This is my card, if you find out anything more about the Hell Hounds apart from the fact that their after power souls."

"And our baby." I added quickly.

He looked interested by this information that he had clearly been left out on by his Mom.

"Really?"

Jesse and I nodded slowly.

"Hmm." He said and shrugged.

"Well, that's interesting, but hey your kid, still inside of you so has nothing to do with me." He handed me his card.

He was a detective, a private one, one who dealt with anything from just following someone to make sure that person isn't cheating on his or her husband/wife to anything out of the norm.

"Thanks." Jesse nodded coolly.

"Just a question, how did you know Jesse isn't, um, from, um, around this… time?" I asked quietly. Tony rolled his eyes.

"It's not hard to figure out when your mother is saying that the mediator I'm looking for is in a relationship with a resurrected ghost from the ninetieth century. And when we were trying to find you I did a little digging and hey presto you can find that someone's' been messing around with birth records and so on and so forth. It a neat job," he added noting both mine and Jesse's nervous expression, "you can only tell if you really know what you're looking for, so." He shrugged.

"Will you tell anyone if Susannah doesn't help you?" Jesse asked.

"One, no, two no one would believe me. _I_ wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen some weird stuff in my life, though," looking Jesse up and down, "a resurrected ghost from 1850 is pretty weird." He looked at me, curious. "I _really_ am curious to know how you did this. I mean, I'm guessing you're the one who brought him back to," he eyed Jesse again, "eh, life? … Is that even the right word for this? I mean he is_ alive_, right? Not a voodoo zombie. He is an actual living, breathing person."

"And _he_ is sitting right here." Jesse muttered, before falling into Spanish ranting.

"I had help and it's a mediator thing and it isn't wise to do it often." I told him firmly, cutting loudly over Jesse's Spanish rants. Tony nodded, ignoring Jesse, taking back on his cool, professional appearance once more.

"I figured. Well give me call, sorry for barging in on you like this, but… I thought it'd be best to make your acquaintance now."

"Your mother loves you, she told me to tell you that and that she died in relative peace. It was the Hell Hound." He stared at me quietly for a moment before nodding.

"Thanks." He nodded to us both and strode off.

"So what do you make of that?" I asked Jesse once Tony was out of sight.

"I'm not sure." Jesse replied taking Tony Davidson's card from me, reading it.

"Why me? Why not Paul? Or Father Dom? Why me?"

"I don't know, _querida_, I don't know."

* * *

"You know, it would be pretty interesting being a detective or whatever." I said the next day as I sat on my bed with the folder that Tony Davidson, flicking threw photos and reading the reports about the scenes that the photos were taken of.

"Even with all the death?" Jesse asked me from the window seat reading a book of deep and meaningful stuff.

I felt like I was a sixteen years old again, with him sitting there with one of the most boring books about humanity and me lying on my bed doing homework, though this wasn't as bad as homework. It was actually interesting, even though I'm guessing this from a normal person's point of view it would be a pretty boring case.

I raised an eyebrow at Jesse for that comment.

"Jesse, I've been dealing with death since I was a baby, I think I can live with this." I told him, flicking threw another stack of photos.

"No, _querida_, you've dealt with ghosts since you were a small child, not death as such. You see the after affects of death; you have never witness the actual cause of death. You see ghosts, but in a way even though a part of you knows that they are dead, you still treat most or all the ghosts you have met as if they were still alive. That's what makes you and Father Dominic so unique because of your abilities to help ease lost souls from the living world to moving on to the next. But to see the body, the body with that soul freshly gone." his face and voice grew sadder and sadder with each word he spoke. I got up from my bed and padded lightly over to where he sat. He smiled sadly up at me.

"I have seen the cause of death, _querida_, mine own, my families and my friends and random people. I have seen a lot of causes of deaths and a lot of after affects of death. I have never liked the former. I don't enjoy seeing empty bodies," he smiled then, weakly, "but maybe that is just me, you have always been stronger than I am in a lot of ways, and," he gently took my hands into his and pulled me down beside him on the window seat, his arm wrapped loosely around my waist, "I do think you would be very good at this job," he smirked then, a cheeky grin, "as long as you kept your temper, you should be fine."

I lightly whacked him over the head for that.

"What on earth are you talking about? I always keep my temper." Jesse just laughed long and hard at that.

I grumbled at him before stalking back to my-our bed and flopped on to, picking up the picture that I had just left.

It looked like all the rest, a women or men of various ages, lying where they fell from their sudden heart attack, but for some reason this one was different.

I peered closer at it, trying to figure out what made it different from the rest.

Tracing the picture of the young woman's body with my finger, I noticed that she was lying differently to the other victims; she seemed to have fallen differently, like she had gone down fighting.

I looked over the report that went with this scene and saw that it made no mention of this change of position, maybe because this one was in a long line of heart attack victims'.

I stared at the photo hard and noticed that the woman, all of twenty-four years of age, was pointing to a map.

I peered closer at it, frowning.

What the?

It was a map of Carmel, and from the looks of it she was pointing right where our house was located.

I felt cold all over.

"Jesse?" I breathed. He was at my side in a moment. Without saying a word I showed him.

Jesse sighed heavily.

"Everyone seems be after us these days." Jesse sighed, sitting down on the bed behind me and pulled me into his chest.

Taylor Winchester was the woman's name.

I stared at her name and at her photo.

"Susannah." Jesse said softly.

"Shhh," I snapped at him.

_Come on, come on._

"Why did you call me?" and there she stood, looking tired and weary. She was quite pretty, blonde and wore it in waves. She had been shorter than me but not by much. Green eyes and with great fashion sense, but that wasn't saving her from my wraith.

"We are sorry." Jesse apologized to her, for he knew I wasn't going to. I was too angry to.

I hop up from the bed, ignoring Jesse's deep sigh of irritation and marched up to the woman, furious.

"Why were you pointing to my house when you died?" I demanded. I was so angry that my whole body shook.

"You shouldn't stress your body out so much; you'll harm your baby and yourself." The woman, Taylor comment mildly.

"Answer me." I growled.

"_Querida_." Jesse came up behind me and wrapped his arms firmly around my waist with his chin resting gently on the top of my head, to restrain me from hitting Taylor.

"I'm not after your child, if that is what you are thinking. I had no idea it even existed until _after_ my death. I was scrying for both the next victim of those _things_," her voice was rich with disgust, "and for that witch," except she didn't say witch exactly.

"And you just so happen to be pointing to my house?" I growled. She shrugged.

"Maybe the witch was present here when she had her monsters' murder me, I do not know."

"Well, you're helpful!" I said unhappily. Jesse sighed heavily.

"I can tell you this. I know why she is after your child and collecting powerful souls." I looked up at her immediately.

"Yes?" Jesse and I asked eagerly.

"She wants to come back to life…" then she exploded.

I mean it, she exploded, seriously.

Bright lights, the bang and the big puff of smoke, the whole explosive deal.

Jesse knocked me to the floor when she exploded; using his body to protect me from harms way.

"That's new." I grumbled under his weight.

"Also new, is you being able to call a ghost that you weren't even sure was an actual ghost. How on earth did you do that?" he demanded as he climbed carefully off me and help me to my feet.

"I just had a feeling. And I think the baby helped me a bit." I admitted.

"Still." Jesse mused.

We stared at the spot where Taylor had stood only moments before, feeling extremely bad for her.

"That must have hurt." I whispered

"And it wasn't a normal exorcism, either." Jesse added reading my mind.

"Ok now I feel bad for being such a bitch towards her." I sighed, flopping on to my bed.

"Susannah, you can't help it being cranky and quick to judge, your hormones are out of order with being pregnant." Jesse tried to soothe me.

"Then I must have been pregnant in high school, because I don't see myself being any different then than I am now." I grumbled staring into my lap.

Jesse smiled softly, stroking my bangs from my eyes.

"There is a difference, _querida_; then you were a confused teenager dealing with things most others your age didn't even think about. Now you are dealing with trying to protect our baby from someone who wants it for no good reason."

"No good reason but wanting to use our baby and souls to bring herself back to life." I replied grimly.

Jesse's eyes grew dark and furious.

"I won't let her." he told me firmly, yanking me into his arms. He buried his face into my hair, one hand resting on the bulge of my stomach that was a squirming baby.

"It kicked." Jesse said, pulling away from me looking delighted as he stared down at the mound that was once so flat!

"He always kicks, what are you talking about?" I grumbled up at him. He rolled his eyes at me.

"He?" he said after a moment of thought.

"I told you, I think it is a boy." I shrugged. Jesse shook his head.

"I think she will be a girl." Jesse replied.

"Most she's are girls." I said smart ass-like. Jesse groan, wrapping his arms around me again and fell backwards on to my… our bed.

"Susannah!"

"Sorry, but why again are you so sure it will be girl. I thought most men wanted little boys who they can take them fishing or play football or whatever." I asked, brushing my hair from my eyes. He shrugged under me.

"I grew up with little girls around me, so I guess, I feel better prepared if we have a little girl as our baby, more experience with them." He shrugged, "but…" he paused looking up at the ceiling above my head, "I guess I wouldn't mind having a boy, but no fishing." He had a teasing look in his eye.

"I was only using that as an example, jeez, landman." I growled rolling off him and onto my back on the bed.

Jesse chuckled as he placed a hand on my belly.

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**Author's Note:** Carmen's and Sleepy's Wedding next chapter, which I'm almost finished, thank god, cause it was causing me to have a writer's block, though I was luckily able to stop with some help from a few kind reader, thank you so much to those people.

See you Soon.

Hope you enjoyed!

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	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: **Well here is chapter 10 (FINALLY! _'bangs head upon desk for all the stress this chapter has caused!'_).  
So yeah, this chapter is sort of long, but it needs to be, not saying why, ( "Author sort of doesn't know herself!" "Shut Up, Brain!")

Anyway, need to get to class, please enjoy and also please review.

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**Chapter 10**

**The Wedding**

Ok, I have met Drama Queens.

Hey, I was even semi sort of friends with Carmel's High Queen of Drama Queens!

But Carmen… well lets just say that Kelly Prescott has now been firmly kicked of her High Queen throne. And after five minutes of Carmen being on that throne, I would have given anything to get Kelly back on it. I would have even happily lead the revolution.

And I thought Mom was bad about the whole wedding business. I almost wished Mom to be back in charge.

Carmen in charge is just plain scary. I never thought that such a temper could be hidden behind such a bright and cheery face!

Well the day of the wedding, _her_ wedding, she was anything but smiley!

One moment she is a complete bitch to everyone around her, which was myself and her other three brides maid, her cousin Martha and her two best friends Alice and Cathy and our two mothers. And the next she was in tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

Wedding nerves, I was frequently told that morning at the old church beside Junipero Serra Mission Academy.

The church I had to get up for early so that I could _supposedly_ help out with preparation for the wedding.

Which, you know, is fine, I mean I was happy to help… ok, I grumbled a bit… ok, a lot, but I still got up early, 6:30 am to get make-up and my hair done and that was fine. I get down to the Church by 7:30 am and what do I get told to do? I get told to go and sit somewhere out of the way.

I came down bright and early to help out with the preparations, help that I both offered and got asked for, and to then be told to go sit down somewhere and be off my feet, all because I'm pregnant!

I could have still been sleeping!

I did get a job though… an oh so fun one too… can you read my sarcasm?

The job that I got was the one of sitting with Carmen as she had nervous break down over her wedding and her broken nail and all the drama and pressure put upon her for everything to go perfectly and that her life at the moment was really unfair and that no one understood just how much she was suffering with this burden that she has, which she got all tight lipped and bitchy about when anyone actually asked her what it was and so on and so forth… It was really pathetic.

I'm the pregnant one and to my knowledge she wasn't pregnant, with the amount of coffee she had consumed that morning, I hold as my proof of this fact, and she cried more in that morning then I had in the six months that I had been pregnant, both known to be and in the time that I was in the dark about it.

Anyway, I did my best to reassure her that all was good with the wedding, "it's going to be ok. Sle-Jake isn't marrying you for your nails being completely straight." or "your hair looks fine! So it is a slight bit frizzy, but Jake's a guy, he won't notice plus he's marrying you for you because he loves you! To him you'll look perfect and beautiful, no matter what." And so on and so forth, you get the idea.

I thought I did pretty well, it stopped most of her tears and I made her laugh a couple of times, but sadly I didn't completely manage to cheer her up. She was still quite upset about something, what about? I was _sooo_ close to finding out.

"Thanks, Suze, but despite what everyone thinks, I'm not just crying because of wedding jitters." She smiled sadly at me, her eyes looking down into her lap where her small hands were twisting themselves into knots. I frown at her, curiously.

"Oh?" I asked her casually. Her eyes flickered upwards, to meet mine, blue-green orbs filled with conflicted emotions.

Our eyes locked into an intense stare that made me wonder what exactly this was all about and made me begin to doubt my first impression of this girl being a cheerful, dumb blonde who had really bad taste in men.

There was now obviously so much more to this girl than what met the common eye, so much hidden behind her cheerful front, like her temper and her fear.

This girl was terrified!

Her sudden grip on my wrist, with its tightness and urgency, informed me just how scared she really was.

"Suze, I have to tell you something. Something really, really important and it has absolutely nothing to do with this wedding. I swear, this wasn't how I wanted this to go." Her voice urgent, her eyes flickering around the bright chamber, as if she was expecting something sinister to suddenly appear, even though we were at this moment completely alone.

"What is it, Carmen?" I asked her in the same slow voice that I have adapted over the years from my dealing with ghosts.

She licked her lips nervously, before biting down hard upon her bottom lip. She looked close to hysteria again.

"Suze, please you have to understand, it's my S-"

"Carmen? Suze?" we both jumped and our heads snapped in the direction of the bridal chamber's door.

"Susie, Darling, will you go and see how Jake and the other boys are doing?" Mom asked me as she, Mrs Brown and the other three bridesmaids walked back into the chamber.

"Uh, sure Mom." I nodded before glancing back at Carmen, but she didn't meet my eye. She was looking at the wall opposite her with a grim face and dark angry eyes. She was refusing to acknowledge any of our presences in the room.

"Ok." I said both to myself and to her as I slowly got up from the comfy chair that Father Dom had found me way earlier that morning.

Sitting down and then having to get back up when you are pregnant can be a real pain, but getting back up in a fairy tale flowing blue gown is an even greater pain. I seriously don't recommend it.

But once I'm up and moving everything is good, good meaning I didn't trip over my flowing gown.

I really didn't want to leave the bridal chamber. I wanted to know exactly what was bothering Carmen and what she had been trying to tell me before we had gotten interrupted. Sometimes my Mother has really bad timing, almost as bad as Doc's, and yes, I still haven't quite forgiven him for interrupting Jesse and me all those years ago. I still want to strangle him, when ever I think about that particular moment.

Anyway, I figured she wouldn't tell me now, not with my mother and her mother and her other brides maids there, especially with her mother giving her an extremely disapproving look which for the life of me, didn't understand, Mrs Brown had been nothing but cheery cheery, much like Carmen, in all the time that I had known her. But I couldn't dwell on the drama of that particular mother/daughter relationship, when it appeared that if I didn't get myself into gear I was going to have some mother/daughter drama too, for my own sweet Mom pushed me right out the chamber door and closed it firmly behind her once I was out. Thanks Mom, love you too.

With the door to the bridal chamber closed to me until I completed my task, I had nothing much better to do than to just go ahead and complete the errand Mom had set for me. Well I had wanted a job, but why did it have to be when I'm about to find something interesting and useful out. Then again, Carmen is a Drama Queen, so Mom may have just spared me from listening to Carmen's useless drama, but I didn't know and that frustrated me to no end.

"Susannah?"

"Hey Father Dom. The Church looks fantastic. You've done a beautiful job with it." I grinned up at him as I stopped beside him to admire with him the main hall of the church.

The Church of Junipero Serra Mission Academy has always looked beautiful to me, even though it is not part of the religion that I would follow, but that day it didn't appear to be church, it was so beautiful that it was almost unrecognizable. It appeared to be more of a Fairy Tale castle throne room ready for a coronation then some old School Church, with all the flower's and silk ribbons hanging and tied everywhere. It was just breathing taking, like someone really just reached into one of those beautifully drawn Fairy Tale books that my Dad read me when I was small and the ones that I am now reading to my unborn baby, and had literally pulled out the throne room from _Cinderella_ or _Beauty and the Beast_ or some Fairy Tale like them. It really was amazing… No, I do not want to get married… I wish Father Dom would stop looking at me with that knowing smirk. I am just admiring the decoration, they are defiantly _not_ inspiring me to get my act to gather and marry Jesse. Nope, they're not doing that for me at all. No inspiration at all! None, I swear.

"Really beautiful." I told him, giving him a warning look for him to wipe that knowing Priest smirk from his handsome face.

"Thank you, Susannah." He was still smiling that annoying smile! He's not taking the hint! "I'm quite pleased with it all myself, even after all the, ah…" his smile faded, thankfully, and he looked thoughtful, pausing for a moment to look about the hall we were standing in between the front door of the church and the main hall of the church, before looking back down at me. I suddenly understood him meaning and I couldn't help smile wickedly back at him.

"Mom and Mrs Brown put you threw you paces, did they?" I teased him, laughing at his disgruntled face.

"And Miss Brown, who is soon-to-be, as you know, Mrs Ackerman."

"Oooh." I sympathised with him. I really did. Having three women, all of whom are desperate for a perfect wedding, on your back for days, isn't easy for anyone. It really must have been very trying for Father Dom, a man in his mid to late sixties and still looking as good as he does; and it had probably taken all his will power to _not_ go to his secret stash of smokes in his desk drawer in his office.

I gave him a sympathetic pat on the arm, asking to change to the subject to a less dangerous topic. "So, which room is Sleepy, ah… I really do mean Jake, I swear Father Dom." I asked, smiling innocently up at Father Dom as he gave me his usual disapproving look of disapproval over my nicknames for my step brothers. He had been long aware of my nicknames for each of and I swear I've heard him refer to Dopey as Dopey at least once when we were still at school, after some stupid wrestling stunt Dopey was trying to pull to impress the usual Drama Queen. I forget details, mainly because of the place that Dopey hurt while pulling the stunt, but I do remember Father Dom clearly calling Dopey Dopey. Heheh, I've taught him well.

"He's with Jesse and his brothers in the first room on the right behind the alter."

"Ok, thanks Father D." I grinned one last time at him, before heading for the aisle.

"Susannah."

"Ye-ah?" I looked back at Father Dominic curiously. He smiled fondly back me.

"You look very beautiful today, Susannah." His smile grew somehow even fonder. "You should wear your hair up with a few curls more often, it suits you." I felt my cheeks grow warm. I had never been complimented like that from Father Dom before. Ok, he had used the word sexual about me once, but that was a completely different circumstance to this. This was a real compliment and he meant it. But I don't know why he looked so proud. I don't know if it was me he was smiling proudly of, because come on, I'm really nothing to be proud of. I'm not the best mediator, not the best student. I don't have a job, I'm pretty much still acting like the teenager I was when he first met me. I'm probably going to be a lousy mother. So why would he be proud of me? But who else is he smiling so proudly at. I was really tempted to look behind me to just make sure there _wasn't_ somewhere there who really deserved his proud and fond smile. I decided to take a chance, that maybe his smile was meant for me and if you I was going to take both his compliment and his smile with grace and honour.

"Thank you." I smiled shyly, though knew happiness must have been radiating from me for, he gently reached out and patted my cheek.

"You're a very good girl, Susannah." And with that he walked off, leaving me close to tears of happiness. Maybe his proud, fond smile was meant for me after all.

"Hey Suze."

"Hi Cee." I grinned back her as I stopped by the long bench that she, Adam and Paul were sitting on close to the front on the right hand side of the church.

"Hey you two." I gave the boys a quick wave, who both returned it before all three looked at me, all wearing the same creepy expression.

"What?" I squeaked, feeling deeply disturbed from the identical cheeky, mischievous looks the three of them were giving me.

"Has Jesse seen you yet?" Adam asked me slyly.

"No, but I'm about to see him now. My Mom asked me to go check on them to see how they're going. Why?"

"Seeing you in that dress, walking up the aisle might give him ideas." CeeCee teased me brightly. She looked really pretty today, in a bluey-white dress with a pretty little white beaded cardigan in her lap, which was almost completely hidden by her stomach. If that kid gets any bigger, CeeCee probably won't be able to walk without falling over constantly. Her was hanging louse but in waves, a style that Gina had picked out for her and which suited her completely.

"What makes you think he hasn't already had those ideas? He is kinda old fashion about these sorts of things, isn't he Suze? Though he kinda of messed up the order of things, hasn't he? The kid is supposed to come afterwards." Paul told us. He was looking particularly grumpy today, but then, I had never really placed Paul as a wedding sort of guy, this was not his type of things, the reception on the other hand, with all the girls there is a completely different matter in itself.

But anyway, I didn't get what they were all on about. I just stared at them in bewilderment.

"I'm going to go find Jesse and Sleepy now." I told them, rolling my eyes at them to show them I was not impressed, before stalking off, rather successfully. Hey I didn't trip with the bloody heels; I was having apparently a good day.

I reached the end of the aisle without any more interruptions from annoying, obnoxious friends who were all on their way to being scratched off the Christmas Card list.

I reached out for the handle of the first right hand side door in the corridor behind the alter when I heard the disgusting sounds of someone throwing up their breakfast, last nights dinner and yesterdays lunch… Yuck. And listening to someone else throw up, indirectly made me want to throw up too. Hey, I'm pregnant with an apparently very special baby! What's this person's, whoever it was, have as an excuse?

I knocked hard upon the think wooden door, which was immediately open after my second knock by Jesse, who looked more than a little surprised to see me standing there.

However my seeing him, as corny as this probably sounds; all dressed up in the Tux that he so hates and is so uncomfortable in but wearing it anyway with no fuss, actually made my queasiness almost disappear completely as I looked up into his deep and beautiful brown eyes. But I must have still not looked a 100% to his eyes, for he looked immediately concern after his finally came to dwell on my face after giving my form a looking over.

"_Querida_?! What's wrong? The baby?" he reached up and gently cupped my chin in his large hand and looked even closer at my face. I would have been happier with a kiss rather than a medical check up, thank you very much. But Jesse, as brilliant and as smart as he is, never seems to get that. Actually he does get it. He gets it very well, but he has always had this thing about our whole age difference. You know, him being born in the eighteen twenties and me in the nineteen eighties.

Actually that's not the age difference that he used to worry about constantly when I was a still a teenager. It was our physical ages that have always made him put a limit, a boundary on how far he was willing to go with me when I was in high school. My raging teenage hormones were a real problem for him back then. He had a hard time keeping them in check and me too, I guess. The limit, boundary, whatever that he put in place all those years ago has subsided over the years but it does raise its annoying head from time to time, reminding me that the man that I love with all my heart and would and have died for, is a man from a time when men had to be extremely respective of women and putting up those limits, those boundaries that I hated and frustrated me to no end, was Jesse's way of being respectful of me and my body and everything in my life. He was protecting me from a world that could have looked very harshly upon our relationship.

"I'm fine. The baby's fine. Someone in there obviously isn't fine, though."

"Ah, that would be Jake; he isn't feeling very well at this present moment in time." Jesse looked remotely amused, though I had no idea why. This _wasn't_ a GOOD thing!

"What?" I yelped, "Is he going to be ok for the Wedding?"

"He'll be fine, he just have pre-marriage jitters or cold feet or whatever you twenty-first century call it now." He still looked amused, almost as if he couldn't understand the whole concept of being nervous before your own wedding. But then he never actually had to worry about all this wedding jitters and cold feet business, he had been off to call his whole wedding off and got murdered for it. And he still likes the ideas of wedding… right, that makes totally logical sense. But it is Jesse, he does have a strange way of viewing the world.

I rubbed my face in despair.

"So the Bride has pre-wedding tears and the Groom has pre-wedding vomiting. Brilliant! Just brilliant." I muttered dryly. Jesse smirked down at me in amusement and pulled me into a hug.

"You had better tell him to pull himself together cause the show is about to begin in about ten minutes." I informed him.

"I'll inform him of that, _querida_. You go and tell Carmen that it will soon be all over." I laughed and turned to leave, but as I did, I heard him muttered something under his breath.

"Hmm? What Jesse?" I asked curiously, turning around to face him, making the strands of my curled hair that fell from the twisted bun on the crown of my head bouncy lightly on my shoulders. He smiled as he watched the curls bounce around, reaching out and gently giving one a gentle tug making it bounce even more.

"Hey, don't do that, Mom, will flip if she sees one of these straight! Do you know how long I suffered under the curling iron for these curls?" I wailed. He laughed before smiling down at me. It was a different smile from his amused smile that he had been wearing before. I didn't know how to class this smile, for it has so much emotion within it, love, fondness and longing.

He reached out and gently cupped my chin in his hand again, moving forward so that he could press his forehead gently against mind.

"I said you look beautiful. The most beautiful creature in the world." I felt my cheeks grow all warm again. Jesse chuckled at my warm glow that my cheeks were producing just for him.

"Go, _querida_, we'll talk later." He kissed my forehead, before gently turning me around and pushing me back in the direction that I had come.

"Talk about what?" I asked him puzzled, but he just smiled secretively back me and walked back into the groom's chamber.

I cheeks were still extremely warm as I walked back down the aisle and much to my annoyance those three obnoxious people noticed the pinkness of my cheeks and started making immature wolf whistles at me, laughing outwardly when I stuck my middle finger discretely back at them. The people beginning to crowd the benches looked on with curiosity and disapproval.

"The boys' are ready to go in ten minutes." I informed everyone inside the bride's chamber

"Of course they are, when were not. Come on Carmen, up you get and let's do the finish off the final touches to make you perfect for your Groom." Mom gently caught Carmen's arm and steered her away from the chair that I had left her in ten minutes before hand and towards the tall mirror. Carmen nodded dully in return, allowing my Mom to do as she liked with her.

I don't know what Mom wanted to make perfect, because personally I thought Carmen looked pretty good.

Her golden hair was pulled up into a curled bun with wisps of curls rippling around her neck.

Her wedding gown consists of a smooth beaded strapped, tight bodice with a layered flowing skirt with the first few layers as a train that swished softly as she moved. All she needed was a tiara and she's look like a real fairy tale Princess.

Just as I was thinking that, Mrs Brown walked into the room, carefully carrying a small rectangle box about the size and shape of a cake box… yum, cake! Oh, this is not fair! Baby, you can't give Mommy food cravings right before a wedding.

I want cake! Chocolate Mud Cake, with slightly warmed with whipped cream and ice cream on the side. Oh and melted chocolate poured everything and…

Anyway, Mrs Brown carefully held out her precious box's out for Carmen to open.

"Oh Mom!" her voice was so soft as she lifted the lid off the box and looked inside.

She gently took out a delicate silver wired and incrusted with clear crystals tiara and held it in awe as her cousin, two best friends and the two mothers swooned over it, exclaiming at its twinkling beauty.

The swooning grew louder as Mrs Brown placed the tiara upon Carmen's golden head. It was the finishing touch that Carmen's appearance had need for her to now look every bit the Fairy Tale Princess Bride.

Yet despite her fairy tale appearance, Carmen once more looked upset and teary.

I gently patted her arm, trying to smile reassuringly at her.

Ok, I know marrying Sleepy, hardly the most attractive man on the planet, is an ordeal, but considering who she could be marrying, a.k.a Dopey! 'Shudder'

She really didn't have a bad deal in stored for her, so I didn't get her tears and so it seemed, did anyone else, but no one question her more about her uncharacteristic unhappiness that morning for the music had started to play and Mr Brown was walking into the room.

"Everyone ready?" He asked smiling good naturedly at all of us.

"Yes Daddy!" Carmen squealed brightly. I did a double take at her.

Wow, talk about a personality switch!

She was now all smiles and giggles and what was even weirder was that it seemed that I was the only one who seemed to notice this sudden turn around in moods.

I mean her all demeanour had changed, completely, from teary and bitchy to well back to her normal bright and hyper self and no one here was even fluttering an eye lid at this

But maybe this is the norm for brides on their wedding day, though Mom and CeeCee had never been so extreme of their days.

Mom had been nervous but still keeping a calm and CeeCee had well be overall scared stiff, but still glowing with disbelieving happiness.

Neither of them to my knowledge had shown the extremes ranges in moods that Carmen was showing.

Not that I had much time to think about Carmen's strange behaviour for the Wedding was about to begin.

Sighing heavily, I took my place behind Alice and in front of Cathy. With another sigh I walked out of the Bridal Room and into the main part of the Church where everyone was looking at us.

I felt so stupid walking down the aisle in this dress, feeling a varying of both curious and disapproving eyes upon my swelling stomach, despite my effort to hide balloon behind my bouquet.

My eyes kept straying to my feet despite my efforts to keep them looking up at the front, it was just so embarrassing!

My eyes flickered up and looked at the Alter, catching Father Dom's eyes, which were telling me to keep looking straight and not at my feet. But if I didn't look at my feet I was going to trip!

My head was about to look back at my feet, when I caught Jesse's laughing eyes. He was finding my embarrassment and shyness amusing. I wanted to hit him! Is not suppose to laugh at me, it was he's fault that I was like this!

But still looking at him, rather than at anything else, actually made me feel better and less embarrassed about doing this.

As I stood between Cathy and Alice, watching Father Dom marry Carmen and Sleepy, I felt as if I was viewing things from a third person point of view, for my mind began to wander as I thought about the future. Mine and Jesse's future. The future we were going to have together and with our child. Our child.

The playful banter about whether or not the baby was going to be a boy or girl suddenly seemed serious. We hadn't thought about names or anything. We hadn't set up anything for the baby.

I could feel panic grow within me, yet something inside me told me that all would be fine. For I saw a soothing image of Jesse, holding a small bundle tightly to him, looking down at it with wonder and love in my mind.

Before my mind's eye, the baby that I could Jesse holding turned into a small toddler, determine to be in the thick of things, to not be beaten by his Dad, just because he was bigger than him.

That Toddler turned into a small child of maybe six years, a little boy with messing dark hair, lighter than Jesse's but darker than mine, a combination of both our shades. His face was a miniature Jesse's, but with a cheeky grin and a mischievous light in his bright green eyes.

My green eyes. There was a bit of me in that beautiful young face. It didn't bother me at all that this child took after his father more than me.

I tried to imagine a little girl in the place of the boy but couldn't. I could see the girl with dark plaits and soulful dark eyes, but the little boy was still remained in place of my minds eye, the older brother, extremely protective of his younger sister happiness and safety, putting himself threw all sorts of trials to keep her smiling and laughing.

Both could see ghosts, but they accepted that, happy to help any ghost that came to them with more grace than I even now possessed. I grinned at what I was seeing, not even sure what I was seeing was even real, for it was all taking place in or around a lovely little cottage by the sea.

"_Querida_?" Jesse was standing beside me as we waved Carmen and Sleepy off as they drove away for the reception as the same hotel that they had had their rehearsal dinner three nights ago.

I grinned brightly up at him, sliding my hand into his and squeezing it tightly.

"Do you feel up to the reception?" He asked me gently. I thought for a moment and found that I was in fact almost dead on my feet, and clearly I wasn't the only one, CeeCee wasn't looking extremely happy. Adam grinned at us before helping a CeeCee to their car. I smiled, one an a half more months until we were going to have a little Adam or CeeCee around.

And then two months after their baby was born ours would be brought into the world. My lips tugged into a nervous smile as I waited for Jesse in Andy's old car as he went and told my Mother and Andy that we were going home.

"I thought that we were going home." I mumbled as I stared out the window as we drove out of Carmel and into the surrounding country side.

"We are. I just want to show you something first." Jesse replied, his face was full of secrets, hidden behind a mischievous smile.

"Um, ok." I settled back into my seat, I would let Jesse keep his secrets for the time being.

"Ok, close your eyes." He told me a short time later.

"Huh? Wha you up to?" I demanded, eyeing him suspiciously. He laughed, his dark eyes twinkling but he just smiled at me in a knowing way, so I gave in and closed my eyes obediently.

"No peeking." I sighed and covered my closed eyes with my hands.

"See, no peeking." I grumbled. He just laughed again and pulled up at our destination, which I had no clue where that was or what that was.

He moved around the car and opened my door, helping me out and guiding me down a gravel road or path.

"Can I open my eyes now?" I whined.

"No, not yet."

"Jesse!"

His amused chuckles were my reply and I fought the desire to do some sort of bodily harm to him.

"What about now?" I asked hopefully as I heard the sound of a wooden gate being opened.

"Almost. I almost forgot how impatient you are." He teased. I pouted up at him.

"You can open them now." He said and gently pulled my hands away from eyes.

I blinked a couple of times from the sudden sun light blinding them before my eyes began to focus on what was before me.

A small house, cottage really, newly renovated with roof being fixed and rooms I could tell had been added on, but it was beautiful. It seemed to be the day were I walked out of reality and straight into Fairy Tale land.

"I see a house." I said looking up at Jesse, smiling but overly confused by what was going on.

"What do you think of it?" he asked me calmly, but his nerves were obvious to me. But what was he so nervous about?

"I like it, but I don't understand what that has to do with anything. Why are we here?"

He grinned down at me.

"Well, we are here because this house is finally finished."

"What do you mean?" I looked to and from him to the house. I swear I've seen that place before, but where…

"You remember how, when we were back in New York and you said it wasn't how you remember it and that you wanted to come back to Carmel to be close to your family again." I nodded unsure where the hell this was going.

"Yeah but I said that years ago, like after a few months of living there."

"Good thing you did say that though."

"Why?"

He shrugged, "if you hadn't said anything, I wouldn't have started working on this place for years, but since you said you wanted to be back here I was able to ask Andy for help and getting the contracts with the Banks."

"Jesse, I still don't think I'm following what you are on about." I muttered, feeling excitement growing within me despite my confusion.

"Would you like to live here?" Jesse asked calmly, so, so calmly. I stared at him, just stared, my heart pounding within my chest. Then I threw myself at him, my arms fling themselves around his neck, squealing with delight and excitement and completely knocking him off his feet and on to the soft grass beside the gravel path.

"So I take that a yes?" Jesse laughed as I started kissing his face with butterfly kisses.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" I squealed.

"You sound like I guess most women sound when their just be asked to marry their partner."

"Shut up!" I grumbled still kissing his face.

"So how long have you actually kept this a secret for?" I asked as Jesse helped me to my feet and we walked towards the paint green door of the cottage.

"About four years now." He shrugged as I gagged beside him.

"Thanks for telling me." I complained as he took out a ring of keys, that I was actually familiar with but had never been bothered to ask him what the hell they opened. My head dropped as my own stupidity and obliviousness came into light.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"And ruin the surprise?" Jesse snorted. My lips tweaked into a small smile.

"But…" I trailed off and smiled more fully as Jesse switched on the foyer light. The foyer had a long corridor, dinning room attached to the right of it with a large study attached to that and a living room to the left. The kitchen was at the back, past the upstairs stairs, facing the ocean. Upstairs had four bedrooms, one master with its own bathroom, a central bathroom was there also.

"How can we afford this?" I squeaked loudly as we did another tour of this house.

"_Querida_, I was born over a hundred and fifty years ago." Jesse said seriously.

"Your point is?"

"My point is that I was the only male in my family."

"Yeah," I interrupted him, "so what?"

"My family left a certain amount of inheritance for all their descendents." He explained. My brain finally clicked and I gave my head a quick bang on the door frame in frustration with my own slowness.

"I get it. I get it." I sighed. "I feel so stupid." I added grumpily.

"So you've been using your family's inheritance to you to help buy and fix this place up?" I asked. He nodded.

"Well there is no one left and Father Dominic said that it would be alright." He face was grim and sad.

"But there will, in another three and something months." I reminded him gently, taking his hand and placing it upon my swollen stomach, so that he could feel our child kicking. He smiled, his face taking a look of great peace. I smiled too, overjoyed but these sudden but welcome turn of events. I looked around the cottage again then gasped as I realised why this place was so strangely familiar.

This was the cottage from my daydream earlier that morning, with the two little children, our children.

"_Querida_?" Jesse asked me worriedly. I reach up a hand and smoothed out his worry lines.

"I'm fine. It's all fine. I'm just really, really happy!" I laughed and hugged myself closer to him, staring at our new home wondering how I had been so blind to this going on behind my back. I laughed and shook my head.

I love this man!

* * *

Class!

Ok see ya! Hope you enjoyed and please review!


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** Hello, yes I am not dead, just been insanely busy with preparation for big exams and then doing those exams and now doing more preparation for even bigger exams. But I got a really lovely review this morning that, um hehehe, reminded me that I hadn't posted chapter 11 up here yet, even though it has been done for well over a month now. So um, Thank you very much Pandagirl66 for reminding me that I hadn't posted this here, which I am so sorry about but my mind has been off doing so many different things that I 've been barely able to focus on my big long fanfics. Can still write random one-shots, but big fics at the moment just make me want to cry for not updating in so long because of stupid but extremely important exams.  
Um, anyway since that's all explained, warning to readers, this chapter is really random and sort of out of the blue because in an effect to get the story rolling again, I cut out bits and pieces of stuff that I was going to be having going on in the months between the wedding and well now where this chapter begins, but I really want to just get this story pack on to its main track and once thats all done, I may come back and add little bits and pieces... Might even try rewriting the whole thing, but not before I finish it first so don't worry. Only a couple more weeks of exams for me this year which means I have loads of time to just sit down and write to my hearts extent.  
Anywat please enjoy this chapter and please leave a comment. **

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**

**Chapter 11**

**The Darkness**

_Blackness… Darkness… Cold, so very cold… no way out but down._

"I hate being pregnant." CeeCee moaned and I was forced to agree with her, though not quite for the same reasons as her.

It is the beginning of September and CeeCee is only weeks away from her due date and has taken on the appearances of a white watermelon. Her words not mine. And being so close to her due date and being so huge, she is getting to be quite sick of being pregnant. A fact that all those around her are quite aware and share her same desire of having the damn kid to come out soon!

Now I'm not quite so close to my due date, two bloody months away and I am not quite so huge, but I'm having my own problems with my pregnancy.

Now not only am I still having morning sickness (all day sickness more like!), but I'm now having to deal with the fact that I am able to move to and from places with a single thought, like a ghost!

I'm also getting weird, sometimes greatly disturbing dreams that come true either the following day or over the course of the following week.

Though one very disturbing dream has not come true yet, thank whatever power is out there… I never want that to come true…

_Blackness… Darkness… Cold, so very cold… no way out but down._

I don't understand what that means.

What does it mean?

Anyway my mediating abilities have enhanced to levels that are even freaking Dr Slaski out, as well as everyone else who know about my abilities have learnt not to make me angry or the room with suddenly fill up with a group of extremely confused ghost or I start moving things around, much like Jesse had done when he was still a ghost.

Personally I don't blame them for being spooked but hey, they're spooked! It's my body that being forced to endure this crap. It's not fair.

The only positive thing that Dr Slacki can think to say about the matter, is that its all the baby's doing, so once I give birth, all this weird stuff should go away as soon as the baby is no longer inside of me.

But somehow, this information doesn't actually give me much comfort; it actually makes me feel a whole lot worse. I now understand why so many ghosts and so on are curious about my baby. He is still inside of me and he is already displaying more abilities than I have ever possessed.

At least with him inside me, I can protect him using his gifts but once he's born, that's a completely different story. It will be easier for the Witch to get him once he's born.

My stomach churned unhappily at the thought of that. Even though the Witch has actually been laying pretty low over the last few months, I know she's still out there, watching. I can feel it.

"You alright, Suze?" CeeCee asked me suddenly, bringing me swiftly back from my unhappy musing. I smiled weakly at her from across the coffee table in her and Adam's small flat.

"Your worrying about the Witch and your baby again aren't you?" she asked softly.

"Yeah." I muttered.

"Why?"

"Cee, how exactly did I get here?" I laughed harshly. Her face went a little red as she remembered her scream at my sudden appearance in her kitchen. I had screamed too, but I am getting pretty used to this annoying teleportation thing.

"It's strange, I never believed in stuff like this and then you come along and now I can believe in almost anything." CeeCee sighed.

"Sorry." I mumbled, feeling extremely bad for opening up this world to her and Adam. She shrugged, "I don't actually mind, its just really weird having you suddenly materialised in my kitchen. That is just a completely new kettle of fish." I laughed weakly.

"I know exactly what you mean, its freaking me out." My head dropped and I stared down at my swelling belly, stroking it softly.

"I don't think your baby will be able to do all theses things you can do at the moment." CeeCee said suddenly, with confidence.

"Huh? But it's the baby who _is_ doing all these things."

"Yeah, all theses abilities _are_ the baby's, but think about it, Suze. The baby is a very small human being with no experiences in this world. At the moment it is completely dependent on your experiences and your body mass, but when you give birth, your little one won't have you to depend on anymore to use its abilities any more. So technically, the baby won't use its abilities until it has the experiences and body mass to control them."

"O-kay…" I sort of got what she was on about, but really she could have been speaking Spanish for all of what I got from her explanation. I would have to try and explain what she said to Jesse, so that he could explain it to me… or it might just be easier to just ask CeeCee to just explain what she said to me to Jesse when he came to pick me up in a hour or so.

He was getting quite use to my sudden phone calls, asking him to come and pick me up from bizarre places, though this was by far the least bizarre places the baby has managed to wind up teleporting us too. Paul's Grandfather's places had been, however, a less than desirable place to wind up in, since I got both lectured and tutored about the exploitation of my Baby's gift and his amazement at just how powerful the baby actually was, still inside the womb. Even after both Paul and Jesse had arrived on the scene it took forever to get me out of that house and away from Dr Slaski fascinated mind.

It's so dark and cold. Blackness above me, blackness below me and I'm drowning in them. There is no way out…

_Blackness… Darkness… Cold, so very cold… no way out but down._

"Suze?"

"Susannah."

"Hmm?"

I woke with a start, blinking weakly in the dull light of dusk, no darkness here. Jesse and CeeCee were both leaning over me.

"How long have I been asleep?" I asked, sitting up slowly, stretching my stiff limps which were cramped from being curled up on CeeCee's couch for so long.

"Two hours." CeeCee said looking amused.

"Oops, sorry, Cee." CeeCee shrugged, "Don't worry, I went to sleep too. I only really just woke up a few moments ago when Jesse arrived."

"Hi." I yawn as I gave Jesse a hug.

"Hello. You look exhausted."

"Thanks, Jesse, just what every girl wants to hear just after she's woken up." I grumbled, hitting his arm lightly.

"That teleportation thing you have going on must really tire you out." CeeCee mused.

"Yeah, it does, just hope it isn't frying my brain cells in the process." I yawn again, stretching my arms above my head. Jesse gave me a less than amused look for that comment, but I shrugged it off. I wasn't travelling threw time or to the spirit realm or anything, I was just moving from place to place. Slaski said this sort of teleportation didn't do any damage to the brain; it just made me sleepy because it wasn't my ability and because of that it was taking more energy to do it. My argument is, if that is the case why the heck is my kid doing it? He only did it when I was in some sort of danger before, now he seems to be just showing off!

_Blackness… Darkness… Cold, so very cold… no way out but down. But the light within will guide you safely._

* * *

"Don't get what the thrill is of transporting me all over the planet is." I grumbled, curled up on my and Jesse's bed in our still relatively new cottage, though not technically new, but still new to me.

"Maybe to impress Mama." Jesse replied. He was sitting on the window seat that had been specially design for our bedroom by Andy, with a thick text book in hand reading it with great more interest than what it, the book, was probably use too.

"Hmm, well can't it find another way to impress me, like not making me want to throw up because it kicking some internal organ. I mean, I'm not a punching bag." As I said this, I winced at a particularly skilled kick bruised my gut. "Ouch."

"Did the baby kick you again?" he voice was concerned but I could hear the restrain laughter within.

"Shut up." I moaned and rolled on to my back, wiggling around a bit to try and get into a somewhat comfortable position. He watched my struggles for comfort for a moment in silence before swinging himself swiftly off the window seat and walked out of our room without a word.

I blinked after him dumbly, I hadn't meant I wanted him to leave, but he had left his text book, so he had to be coming back. I mean, he never left that text book just lying around; it was always with him, mainly because it was his greatest chance of him passing his medical Exams to become a Doctor. It was his holy bible.

"Jesse?" I question him as he walked back into the room, carrying a whole heap of pillows. I had no idea we had so many pillows.

"Eh, Jesse?" I asked as he placed his bundle on the bed before moving to my side.

"Up, _querida_," he said smiling, and helped me sit up. He then strategically placed all the pillows around me, before helping me back down. I was slightly surprised to find that the added pillows around me, helping me probe up my back just slightly and being able to curl around a pillow when the baby was kicking, suddenly was extremely appealing.

"Now where are you going?" I yelled after him as he left me once more. I heard his feet going down stairs and sighed.

"A heat pack?" I squeaked when he came back holding a warmed heat pack, wrapped in a dish towel. He just smiled and placed the pack on my belly. It actually felt pretty good and it calmed the baby down slightly.

"How do you know so much?" I grumbled then slapped my forehead. "Duh, you had five younger sisters didn't you." I rolled my eyes at my own dumbness.

"And I remember all their births and my mother pregnancy with each one." Jesse smiled, brushing the spot on my forehead where I had slapped it.

"Yeah, you had five little sisters and you still want a baby girl?" I snorted in disbelief.

"You have three step-brothers and you are determined that our child is a boy." He replied calmly. I gapped at him for a moment.

"That's different."

"Not really." He continued to smile and kissed my forehead, "but really I don't mind whether the baby is a boy or girl."

I was cut off from replying to that by a yawn, which caused him to chuckle.

"Sleep _querida_, you need your rest."

"Even though, I'm not doing anything." I grumbled, snuggling deep into our bed.

"_Querida_, you are. You've manage to solve three mystery cases for Davidson in the last month, I don't call that 'not doing anything'." Even though Jesse was praising me for my detective skills he still pulled a face at having to mention Tony's name. He still hadn't quite forgiven Tony for talking about him as if he hadn't been there when they first met. Then again I wouldn't have taken a shine to the person who asked whether or not I was a 'living Zombie' either. It was still funny; though when I look back on their meeting, better than Jesse's meeting of Paul… shudder.

"Sleep, _querida_." He mumbled and kissed my mouth gently.

"You're not going to end up sleeping on the window seat again, are you?" I asked him sleepily, feeling a pang of guilt of practically kicking him out of our bed because of my constant movement. He smirked at me.

"I'll see how much you, yourself are kicking, before I venture into bed." I stuck my tongue out at him, before closing my eyes, letting sleep wash over me

_Blackness… Darkness… Cold, so very cold… no way out but down. But the light within will guide you safely._

And I would have slept really soundly if I had been given the chance and not have fallen into freezing cold water.

_Freezing cold black water… darkness all around me…_

…..

Ah! NO! This had to be a dream! This couldn't be REAL! It was always just a dream!

"Jesse?!" I shrieked in alarm as my head broke the surface of large and deep body of water.

Once I had gained control over my body and my buoyancy kicked in, I looked around, not that there was much to see.

I was in pitch blankness, paddling around in a freezing cold lake (possibly even an ocean). So obviously I had no clue where I was, just that I was in my nightmare that I had been having for the last couple of weeks.

"This is just great! Baby, please take Mommy back to Daddy, before we both freeze and die of hypothermia." I whispered, rubbing my abdomen with one hand as I swished around in the water again, trying to see some sign of… ANYTHING!

Nothing happen, the baby was either ignoring me (don't know why), a sleep (don't know how) or too cold, like me to do anything much (now, that I could understand, even though it scared the living daylights out of me)

"Oh god," I whispered as my limps started to grow more and more numb with every second that I struggled to keep my head above the black water, "oh god, Jesse! Please Jesse. Please Jesse, wake me up. Please Jesse." My head suddenly went under the black water as if something beneath me had grabbed me and was trying to pull me into the black unknown depth.

Terrified I kicked out, forcing my head to break the surface again, gasping for air.

This time something soft and cool touched my right foot.

I froze, hardly daring to breath as the soft, cool thing curled itself around my ankle.

It felt like a hand!

Why a hand?

"Jesse, please."

Its grip grew suddenly tighter and tugged.

"JESSE!" water caved down upon my head and no matter how hard I kicked I couldn't fight off the hand nor could I pull myself back to the surface.

My lungs began to ache from lack of air. The baby was now panicking, kicking and whatever else it could do at my innards.

_Well if you're scared, do something! Mommy has already tried and now she's feeling very, very tired…_ I couldn't think straight and when I saw the light suddenly glow from my belly, I thought that I was finally meeting the dreaded light… and I hadn't even said good bye to Jesse nor how much I love him. He was going to be so angry at me.

_Blackness… Darkness… Cold, so very cold… no way out but down. But the light within will guide you safely._

Jesse

………………..

* * *

Jesse stirred from where he had fallen asleep on the window seat and blinked at the darkness bedroom. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong!

He moved slowly to his feet, staring hard at the queen size bed, his heart pounding.

"Susannah. _Querida_?" he moved to the side of the bed where Susannah usually slept. The pillows and extra blankets he had placed there were all wrong.

"_Querida_?" his hands touched the top blankets, knowing immediately as he did so that she wasn't there.

"Susannah." He breathed as he stepped away from the bed, switching the central light on.

He was panicking now, the bed gave no indication that Susannah had left it the normal human fashion, the blankets and sheets had all collapsed onto themselves as if the person curled beneath them had simply evaporated.

"Susannah, come back here right now." He muttered as his feet took off, running from the bedroom and searching the rest of the cottage.

Nothing… Susannah didn't appear anywhere, looking furious and frustrate, rubbing her swelling abdomen as she scolded their unborn child for being silly and teleporting her all over the bloody planet.

Why wasn't their unborn child teleporting her back to him?

He could feel himself begin to tremble as he continued to search the cottage one more time… what if. What if the witch had taken them and he hadn't even noticed. His trembling grew worse as fear and anger started to try and consume him.

_Calm down, calm down_, he told himself repeatedly as he tried to pace his furiously beating heart. But he couldn't, he couldn't calm down nor could he bring his heart to a more reasonable pattern of beating. He was too scared.

Scared for Susannah and their unborn child and scared about being alone. He hated being alone. Spending over a century and half by yourself and then suddenly having constant company all the time did that to you. You became dependent upon that person who saved you from your eternal loneliness and now that she was gone or apparently gone, he was at a complete lost. Nothing he could think or do made any sense to him with his everything gone.

He closed his eyes. He could not stop trembling and no logical thought as of what he should do came to him. Absolutely nothing was making sense to him, not even the knocking on the front door made any sense to him.

Knocking?

Susannah?

He moved faster than he knew was humanly possible, a random left-over trait from his time as a ghost. He made it to the front door from the bedroom in less than three seconds.

"Susann…" he voice broke as he flung the door open and the light of the hall revealed the last person he was expecting to see on his doorstep in the dead of night.

"Please, I can help you."

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**Author's note: **I told you it was slightly random and out of the blue, but it is back on to the original story more or less now. Thank you for reading and please leave a comment.  
Also People, do go and have a read of my Mediator one-shots "The Life You Give Me". It is actually well worth a read or so I've been told countless times on Meg Cabot's message board in the fanfic sections.  
Once again thanks for reading and I'll update as soon as all my exams are over.  
Bye


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note:** Yes, I know, it has been a ridiculously long time since I've updated this and I am very, very sorry about that.  
This year, I am determined to complete this fic, even if it kills me! Which, hopefully it won't, because yeah than I would be able to write anymore.  
So yeah, once again I am sorry about the long wait for this chapter after such a cliffy with the last one.  
Please Enjoy and reviews are much loved.

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**Chapter 12**

_Jesse!_

I felt odd.

Well yeah, most people probably did feel a bit odd after being dragged under black water by a terrifying pale hand grapping their ankle and with the increasing depth that you are pulled under, you feel as if a great weight is being pushed down upon you head.

And then because of all this, you appear to have drowned… but then you wake up. So yeah, I think I have full rights to be feeling odd right about now.

"I think she is awaking up." Ok, now I feel even odder, because I swore that I just heard a voice... scratch that several voices, which is weird because only like a few seconds ago, I did sort of open my eyes to have a look around me and there had been no one around me then, especially not a whole group of people that I could hear right now… and trust me, I would have known that they were there before; for where I was, it wasn't exactly dark! Which is another reason I was keeping my eyes now tightly shut.

"I think, she thinks she's dead."

"Well I would too, if I were her! Why did you have to bring her here the way you did? Would scare the life out of any sane person!"

"Mathew, quit complaining… and you are dead! So you can't talk!"

"Thank you _so_ much for reminding me!"

"Shush, both you! Neither of you are helping." Why thank you, who ever you are.

Those two were giving me a headache; which being dead, how could I possibly ever get one ever again? Oh wait, am I actually dead?

I forced down my fear that I had actually, you know, kicked the bucket. Checked out. Popped off. Bit the dust. You know, that I was actually… dead.

_Come on, Suze, bite the bullet and open your eyes and see what the bloody hell is going on. The quicker you do that, the quicker you might… no CAN go back to Jesse… _I cringed, that'll be a fun conversation. I could just hear it now.

_Hey Honey, I'm home… and oh yeah by the way; I'm a ghost now. Yeah, funny huh? Talk about role reversal, huh?_

SUZE!

Fighting not to pull a face, I open my eyes and my mouth dropped… oh no way…

Jesse felt his mouth drop at sight of the person who stood before him in the doorway of his home.

"Carmen?"

She stared at him sadly, though her blue eyes were wide with terror as they darted in all directions as if she suspected an attack from any direction.

"Can I please come in?"

"Um, I'm actually having a bit of a crisis at the moment."

She nodded her head as if agreeing with him.

"Yes, I know."

"You do?" He asked feeling his confusion rise to another notch. She nodded again this time more vigorously.

"Please let me come in."

He stared at her for a few moments longer before stepping back and allowing her to enter the cottage.

"Why do I have the strangest feeling that you know exactly what is going on here." He muttered as he shut the door behind her and motion for her to go into the lounge room. She simply nodded glumly in return and he felt an immediate sinking feeling in his gut.

_No way!_

I simply could not believe what I was seeing. I shook my head a few times, but the people or rather ghost (I think) didn't disappear before me.

"You're all dead."

"Yes, we know that quite well, thank you very much." A man, Mathew I think grumbled.

"No, I mean, I know that. But, I mean, you're…" I trailed off weakly, unsure how to voice my thoughts with offending these already obviously over-sensitive beings.

"What you mean is that we've all been either killed or taken by Hell Hounds, right dear?" I blinked stupidly at the owner of the new voice.

"Bethany Davidson?" I mumbled softly and she smiled sadly back at me.

Yeah, that had been what I meant but for some reason I was still rather surprised to see her standing there with the rest of ghosts who I had known or had at least guessed had been either killed by Hell Hounds or as ghosts been taken by them. I could see the old woman that had come to Jesse and I way back when we were still living in New York and had no clue that something weird and dangerous was going on. I could see others, like the Liberian I had thought I had saved but obviously hadn't and a few other ghosts that I and Father Dom had been mediating for a couple of weeks when I and Jesse had first return, only to have them mysteriously disappear on us.

I look at all the faces that were staring at me in this gloomy place and I felt a surge of pity for them.

I mean, this place reminded me of that horrible corridor, except that this place being a thousand times worse. It was no corridor, it wasn't even a room. I wouldn't even call it a place because it is basically nothing but glumness and mist, filled with sadness and anger.

"Where are we?"

"I guess you could call this place Limbo." Bethany said softly, looking around her sadly. I shuddered.

"Limbo? You're kidding right? How did I get here? I'm not…?"

"Dead? No. we simply called you here."

"Called?" I asked with raised eyebrows. "You call how you got me here 'simply called'. Wasn't there a better way than that to get me here?"

All the ghosts around me shook their heads.

"We did try to be gentle, but you and the baby struggled so much that the only way to get you to come was to grab you and pull you down." Mathew explained, somewhat sheepishly. I scowled at him and he looked even more sheepish.

"Ok, so now that you've all got me down here, what do you all want?"

"Your help obviously."

"With? And if you mean getting you all out of here? I'm sorry but I have no idea how to."

"Oh that's not why we summoned you here." Bethany said quickly.

"Oh?"

"We wanted to talk to you. To tell you what we know."

"Ok. Shoot. I'm all ears because granted I can't go anywhere and I'm guessing I can't leave without listening to you all first, right?"

No one answered me and I sighed, turning my full attention on to Bethany.

"We know why the witch wants your baby."

My whole body became stiff, my hand moving to my belly, feeling my child kicking lightly against my hand as if you reassure me that he was fine and that all would work out somehow. I forced myself to smile.

"Yeah, actually I know why she wants my baby. To bring herself back to life, right?" Bethany and the rest of the ghosts look more than a little startled.

"How do you know that?" Bethany asked softly.

"Um, this ghost witch told us before she got kinda blown up."

"So, you know what is at stake, then?"

"Yeah I know, but she can't. She can't just come back to life simply because she has a lot of power working for her. That's not how it works. There is so much more to it then that."

I was met with blank looks and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"She needs a body. Which she doesn't have, unless she goes back through time and… _but_ that is way, way too complicated. But really, she needs a body to come back to life."

"She has one." Bethany said softly.

"Look I just said that she can't have her own body and you know you kinda need a body to be alive."

"I never said that she wanted her own body to come back to life in." Bethany said softly. I looked at her for a moment in confusion before my heart sunk.

"Whose body does she want then?"

"Her sister's." I closed my eyes as suddenly more puzzle pieces fell into place and I felt sick in my gut.

"Her sister's?"


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note:** Ok, just so you know this chapter is the _**Exposition Chapter**_, so basically everything (more or less) is explained in this... YAY!  
Gosh, this was hard to write!  
And to think I was thinking of rewriting this whole fanfic (once I'm finished it of course)... 'rolls eyes'

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**Chapter 13**

"And I'm her sister."

Jesse just sat there in stunned silence at the rather incredible story he just been told by Carmen. It seemed so unbelievable and yet, looking into the scared face of the young woman sitting opposite him at the dinning table, her hands wrapped tightly around her tea cup, so tightly that her knuckles were white.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked through heavy lips. His mind was still reeling from all that he had just been told.

"Because you have a right to know and…" more tears rolled down Carmen's cheeks "and I don't think I can stop her, not that I ever thought that I could before, but…" she took a deep breath.

"You've actually fallen in love with Jake now haven't you?" he guessed, running a hand through his hair. She nodded her head vigorously.

"And she furious with me because I have. It wasn't part of our plan, her plan. But I couldn't help it. He's the first person whose actually looked at me and seen only me. Not my sister. My beautiful, smart, powerful sister." A tear drop dropped into her tea.

"You do understand what would happen if her soul went into your body, don't you?" he asked her softly.

"I do now. I didn't before, but before I didn't question her. But now…" she looked at over at him desperately, "now, I don't want to lose my body. I don't want my soul to be shoved out of it to make room for her. I might not be as beautiful or as smart or as powerful a witch as her but I still want to live. I want to live and be with Jake. Even if the whole reason for meeting Jake was just so that I could get close to you and Suze." She shook her head, her pretty face filled with disgust and self-loathing.

"You love your sister very much, don't you?" he asked softly. Despite everything that this young woman had told him this night, he couldn't find it within himself to hate her. Even though she had done many things that were very similar to what Paul himself had done many years ago, he still found sympathy for this young woman.

"I do. I truly do. But I love Jake more. So much more. She may be my twin, but…" she trailed off and looked down into her tea cup.

"You don't want to die for her? That's fine, you have a right to live your life, and she has no right to say otherwise."

"Ha, you try telling her that! She just gets mad and starts summoning those evil dogs of hers."

He shook his head slightly.

"Seems like a great deal of hassle to go through, to simply come back to life." He muttered softly to himself then he snorted. "Like I'm one to talk."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. Though," he looked at Carmen curiously. "Didn't your sister ever simply think to go and ask a mediator to do a Soul Transfer for her?" He said spat out the words 'soul transfer' with disgust.

Carmen looked at him confused.

"Um no. I don't think so. I mean, she might of but I doubt it. She very much likes to do these sorts of things by herself. Makes her feel more powerful and important, I guess." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Right. So how exactly is she going to do this? Her version of a Soul Transfer, exactly?"

"Um, I'm not entirely sure. I just know it needs me, obviously," she looked a little down but continued, "Um, a lot of spiritually empowered beings, ghost, I suppose and I don't know a power boost? Which I'm guessing would be meaning your baby." She cringed a little under Jesse's hard glare. _So he's and Susannah's child was merely a power booster, wonderful_. He thought darkly.

Just then there was a loud crashing sound from upstairs. Carmen looked at him, her face filled with terror.

"It's her. She is going to be so furious at me." She whispered softly, more tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Stay here." He ordered her softly. She simply nodded her head weakly in return as he moved out of the living room, towards the staircase. He wasn't really sure what he could actually do against a witch, a ghost witch at that, but…

"JESSE!"

He felt his heart almost stop at the sound of his name being half yelp, half shouted from upstairs.

He pounded up the stairs, three at a time to find Susannah, fighting against bedclothes in their room.

"_Querida_?'

"Ow. Hey. Help?" he moved to her side in an instant, helping her untangle herself from the bedclothes before taking her in his arms and pressing her against his chest, burying his face into her hair, breathing her in deeply.

"Ah, Jesse? You're kinda squashing me and the kid here." She squeaked and he quickly released her.

"Sorry. _Querida_?" he cupped his hands around her face gently, resting his forehead against hers. "_Querida_, where did you go? Where did the baby take you?"

"Ah, well that's kinda of a long story. But speaking of which, why were you downstairs?"

"Oh. Well you see I've been listening to a rather long story actually?"

She looked at him more than a little confused.

"Huh?"

Without bothering to explain, he placed an arm around her waist and guided her downstairs to the living room where Carmen still stood, looking nervously at them as they entered the room.

"Huh." Susannah said simply. He looked down at her and could see, clearly written all over her beautiful face that she was torn between the desire of hitting Carmen and not. He gently tighten his grip on her waist.

"So, I'm guessing you've heard a similar story as I have?" Jesse asked her gently, trying to get her to stop shooting daggers at the already traumatised young woman.

"Which would be?" he rolled his eyes at Susannah's cold ignorance.

"Carmen, would you mind greatly if you would retell your story once again? For Susannah?" Carmen shook her head and once more sat down in the seat she had been occupying before Susannah sudden return. Jesse pulled out a seat for Susannah who was still scowling darkly at the young woman sitting across from them. He rolled his eyes at her and motioned for Carmen to tell her story.

"I come from a family of witches. Twin witches to be exact. All the women on the maternal side of my family are twins and have at least some magic. In my sister and my case, the magic between us was not of equal portion. My sister is-was gifted greatly in the act of magic. I, not so much. I can barely make a teaspoon hover for more than a few seconds, while she could lift a whole apartment building without raising a sweat." She smiled a little grimly. "She could be a real brat about it too, that she was so powerful while I was so weak. Everyone in our family was so proud of her. Even our Dad and he doesn't even like this stuff. I used to think Mother bewitched him into marrying her; they are so different from each other, but anyway."

"About two years ago, there was an accident. We, my sister and I, were trying a new kind of spell. Well she was trying, I was just there acting as canon fodder. If something went wrong with her spells and thing got messy the blame would be simply placed on me. Anyways, the spell that she was trying cast was one to bring back the dead." She shrugged at the raised eyebrows being shot at her from her two listeners. "She killed our cat to practise on. Well, she said that she didn't kill him, but…" she shuddered. "Anyway, she was trying to bring his soul back to his body or maybe his ghost or whatever, but I don't know, but anyway something went wrong. We heard a whole lot of whispering and all this dark mist started to appear and it got really cold. I tried to tell her to stop what she was doing, that it was wrong and that only mediators had a right to do this sort of stuff, even though I'm pretty sure you guys don't. I mean, do what she was trying to do, right?" She looked between them, noting the somewhat sheepish and shame-face of Susannah and the blank look of Jesse. "Do you?" she asked startled.

"This is your story time, not ours." Suze growled impatiently.

"Right, sorry. Anyway, we kept going, trying to ignore the voices and the mist and the cold, but then…then there was this flash of really bright light... Don't pull faces that's just what happen." Suze ducked her head, once more looking a little ashamed.

"And the next thing I knew, our basement was completely gone, not to mention our house and my twin sister was dead."

"When did she come back to visit you as a ghost?" Suze asked softly.

"Oh, about a year ago now. She said that while she was in the in-between she had found a way for her to come back to life, but that I needed to help her do it." Carmen said sighing heavily.

"Without telling you what the actual cost of doing so would entitle til now, right?" Suze asked gently. She wanted to be mad. She really did. She wanted to hate this woman whose sister was threatening everything that she had worked so hard for, but she couldn't when the girl looked so defeated and grief-stricken as she did.

"I never wanted to hurt anyone. Never. I just wanted my twin back, so badly. And Mom said that everything would be fine. That everything would work out fine, I just needed to get into your family that was all." A tear rolled down Carmen cheek. "but I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just…" she shook her head.

"Do you love Jake?" Susannah asked unexpectedly. Carmen looked at her confused.

"Of course, but why has that got to do with any of this?"

"Well, because I think that in return he really, really loves you back. I mean, this was a guy who basically lived simply to eat, sleep and work so that he could have enough money to buy a car and that was basically his life. Now, he actually looks like he's actually alive and awake as to oppose to always sleepy." She smiled slightly, though Carmen didn't understand why but guessing from Jesse's rolling of the eyes it must have been an inside joke of sorts between them. She suddenly felt like an intruder, not that she wasn't one already but seeing them, seeing how they were with each other…

"I should probably get going. Jake might sleep like the dead but I think even he will notice that I've been gone a long time." She mumbled quickly. The couple opposite her nodded their heads, getting up as one as she did.

She fought back a small smile as she watched the way that Jesse was quietly trying to fuss over Suze as they walked to the door and her trying to swat him away with an amused but embarrassed sort of grin on her face.

"Goodbye." She mumbled as the door was open for her by Jesse.

"Bye. Oh wait a minute. What's her name? Your sister, I mean?" Suze asked rather urgently.

"Oh, um, I'm sorry. Clara is my sister's name."

"Ok thanks. And, um, this might sound really odd but do you have a photo of her by any chance?" Carmen tilted her head, looking at Suze with a confused expression. "So that we can summon her and kick her witchy-ghostly butt." Suze elaborated calmly while Carmen noted behind her Jesse rolling his eyes heavens ward with a somewhat pleading expression on his face. She fought back a grin again.

They really were such an odd couple and yet they work absolutely beautifully with each other. From the few months that she had known them, she could tell that their love was a true, pure thing.

She felt sure that there was something more to their story than that of which the rest family knew because the depth of the commitment and love that they had for each other went far deeper than any love she had ever seen before.

These two looked ready to die for each other without a second thought. She had the slightest of inkling that they already had.

She felt a another wave of guilt flood her.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, breaking up the silent squabbling going on between the couple, causing them to look at her in bewilderment, "for my part in all this."

"Every family member comes with some type of strings attached and with some sort of unusual background." Jesse soothed her gently. Suze gave a soft snort at this and Jesse simply rolled his eyes at her.

Carmen opened her mouth to question them on this before she quickly closed it again. It was none of her business and they had done so much for her by simply listening to her side of the story, even though she knew they had every right to hate for everything her sister had put them through. And going to put them through still, she thought dully, smiling sadly as she waved her hand in farewell to the odd couple as she hopped into her car and drove back to hers and Jake's little apartment.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yeah, I know that this is a kinda odd chapter, but I really wanted to get all the exposition all out and out of the way, so that I can get back into the action of it all.  
Anyways, I'm having Cee Cee and Adam's baby born in the next chapter (Finally!) and its going to be a girl (Sorry to all of you who wanted them to have a boy but I got a smattering of hands saying GIRL on the Meg Cabot Site, so yeah. I also have some names for her too. Three actually, but I would like a vote for them.  
They are; Angelica, Stephanie or Tarina. Reveiw and let me know.  
Thanks for reading.


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